^RY  OF  PRI/IK^ 


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65 


OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 


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OF  PB//^^ 

MAY  29   1948 


BIBLE  CHARACTEK'ltelMJ^ 

OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

BY 

V-' 

ALEXANDER  WHYTE,  D.D. 

author     of     '  bunyan     characters' 

'  lancelot    andrewes  '    *  jacob    behmen  ' 

'  santa    teresa  '    '  sir    thomas    browne  ' 

'  Rutherford's   correspondents  ' 

'  father  john  '  etc. 


NEW    EDITION 


PUBLISHED     EY 

FLEMING   H.    REVELL  COMPANY 

NEW    YORK      CHICAGO      TORONTO 

^ublisfjcrs  of  ©baugelical  Et'teraturc 


BIBLE    CHARACTERS 


DR.  ALEXANDER   WHYTE 


First  Series 
ADAM     TO     ACHAN 

Second  Scries 
GIDEON     TO     ABSALOM 

TAird  Series 
AHITHOPHEL     TO     NEHEMIAH 

Fourth  Series 

JOSEPH  AND  MARY  TO  JAMES  THE  LORD'S 
BROTHER 

Fifth  Series 
STEPHEN     TO     TIMOTHY 

Sixth  Series 
OUR     LORD'S     CHARACTERS 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 
I.    THE    SOWER    WHO    WENT    FORTH    TO    SOW  .  9 

II.  THE  MAN  WHICH  SOWED  GOOD  SEED  IN  HIS 
FIELDj  BUT  HIS  ENEMY  CAME  AND  SOWED 
TARES  AMONG  THE  WHEAT  .  .  .  1 9 

III.  THE     MAN    WHO     TOOK     A     GRAIN     OF     MUSTARD 

SEED,  AND  SOWED  IT  IN  HIS  FIELD     .  •  3O 

IV.  THE    MAN    WHO    CAST    SEED     INTO     THE     GROUND 

AND    IT    GREW    UP    HE    KNEW    NOT    HOW       .  39 

V.     THE    WOMAN    WHO    TOOK     LEAVEN     AND     HID    IT 

IN    THREE    MEASURES   OF    MEAL  .  .  49 

VI.    THE     MAN     WHO     FOUND     TREASURE    HID    IN     A 

FIELD      .......  59 

VII.    THE    MERCHANT    MAN    WHO    SOLD    ALL    THAT  HE 
HAD    AND    BOUGHT    THE    PEARL    OF    GREAT 
PRICE      .......  69 

VIII.    THE    MAN    WHO    WENT    OUT    TO    BORROW    THREE 

LOAVES    AT    MIDNIGHT        .  .  .  .  7^ 

IX.    THE    IMPORTUNATE    WIDOW        ....  87 

X.     THE    PRODIGAL    SON  .....  96 

XI.    THE     MUCH    FORGIVEN     DEBTOR    AND    HIS    MUCH 

LOVE        .......  106 

XII.    THE    TEN    VIRGINS  .  .  .  .  .1X6 

XIII.    THE    WEDDING    GUEST    WHO    SAT     DOWN    IN    THE 

LOWEST    ROOM  .  .  .  .  .125 


OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 


XIV.    THK    BIDDEN  TO  THE  GREAT  MARRIAGE  SUPPER, 

AND    SOME    OF    THEIR    EXCISES               .             ,  1 33 
XV,     THE      aiAN      WHO      HAD      NOT      ON      A     WEDDING 

GARMENT           .             .             .             .             .             .  I4I 

XVI,     THE    PHARISEE         .  .  .  .  .  ,150 

XVII.     THE    PUBLICAN         ,.,...  161 

XVIII.     THE  BLIND   LEADERS   OF   THE    BLIND             .             .  1 68 

XIX.     THE   RICH    MAN    AND    LAZARUS             .              ,             .  IJJ 
XX,    THE    SLOTHFUL   SERVANT   WHO    HID    HIS    LOBd's 

MONEY 187 

XXI,     THE    UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT     .              ,             .             .  I96 

XXII.    THE    UNPROFITABLE   SERVANT              .             .             .  204 

XXIII.  THE   LABOURER    WITH   THE   EVIL    EYE          .             .  2I3 

XXIV.  THE    CHILDREN     OF     CAPERNAUfll     PLAYING     AT 

MARRIAGES       AND       FUNERALS        IN        THE 

MARKET-PLACE         .            .            .             ,            ,  222 

XXV,    THE  SAMARITAN    WHO    SHEWED    MERCY                   .  23 1 

XXVI.    MOSES    ON    THE    NEW  TESTAMENT    MOUNT                .  24O 

XXVII.     THE    ANGEL   OF   THE   CHURCH    OF  EPHESUS             ,  249 

XXVIII.    THE   ANGEL    OF    THE    CHURCH    IN    SMYRNA             .  258 

XXIX.     THE    ANGEL   OF    THE    CHURCH    IN    PERGAMOS         .  267 

XXX.    THE    ANGEL    OF   THE   CHURCH    IN    THYATIRA        .  276 

XXXI.     THE    ANGEL    OF    THE    CHURCH    IN    SARDIS                ,  284 

XXXII,    THE   ANGEL   OF    THE    CHURCH  IN  PHILADELPHIA  294 

XXXIII.     THE   ANGEL  OF  THE    CHURCH    OF    THE    LA0DICEAN8  304 


OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 


THE  SOWER  WHO  WENT  FORTH  TO  SOW 

*0T  only  in  Jerusalem,  and  at  the  pass- 
over,  but  in  Nazareth,  and  on  days  of 
release  from  labour,  we  may  well  be- 
lieve that  something  like  this  would 
sometimes  take  place.  "  Son,  why  hast 
thou  thus  dealt  with  us  ?  Behold,  thy  father  and 
I  have  sought  Thee  sorrowing."  But  He  would 
answer  to  His  mother, — "  How  is  it  that  ye  sought 
Me  ?  Wist  ye  not  that  I  must  be  about  My  Father's 
business?"  So  would  His  mother  say  to  Him,  and  so 
would  He  answer  her,  as  often  as  she  sought  for  Him 
among  their  kinsfolk  and  acquaintance;  while,  all  the 
time.  He  was  out  in  the  fields ;  now  with  the  plough- 
man, and  now  with  the  sower,  and  now  with  the 
reaper,  and  now  with  the  husbandman  who  had  his 
fan  in  his  hand  with  which  he  was  thoroughly  purg- 
ing his  floor.  And  as  He  walked  and  talked  with  the 
ploughman,  and  with  the  sower,  and  with  the  reaper, 
the  Spirit  of  all  truth  would  descend  into  His  heart 
and  would  say  to  Him  that  all  that  husbandry  He 
had  been  observing  so  closely  was  in  all  its  processes 
and  operations,  not  unlike  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven 


10  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

in  all  its  processes,  and  in  all  its  operations,  and  in 
all  its  experiences.  Till,  as  He  walked  about  and 
meditated,  He  would  draw  out  to  Himself  the  mani- 
fold likenesses  between  nature  and  grace ;  between 
the  husbandry  of  the  farm  and  the  husbandry  of  the 
pulpit ;  when  He  would  lay  up  all  His  meditations 
in  His  mind  and  in  His  heart,  till  we  see  and  hear 
it  all  coming  out  of  His  mind  and  out  of  His  heart 
in  the  teaching  and  the  preaching  of  the  text. 

And,  accordingly,  nothing  is  more  likely  than 
that  He  had  led  His  disciples  to  the  sea-side  that 
day  along  a  way  that  was  well  known  to  Him.  A 
way  He  had  often  walked  as  He  went  to  watch  the 
operations  of  the  husbandman  to  whom  that  field 
belonged.  And  it  being  now  the  seed-time  of  the 
year,  as  the  sower  that  day  sowed,  some  of  the  seed 
fell  under  the  feet  of  the  twelve  disciples,  while 
flocks  of  hungry  birds  swooped  down  and  devoured 
whole  basketfuls  of  the  sower'*s  best  sowing.  And 
thus  it  was  that  no  sooner  had  our  Lord  sat  down 
by  the  sea-side  than  He  forthwith  pointed  His 
disciples  back  to  the  field  they  had  just  passed 
through.  And  not  only  did  He  recall  to  their 
thoughts  what  they  themselves  had  just  seen,  but 
He  told  them  also  all  that  He  Himself  had  seen 
going  on  in  that  same  field,  year  in  and  year  out, 
for  many  spring  days  and  many  harvest  days,  when 
His  mother  could  not  make  out  where  He  was,  or 
what  He  was  doing.  But  all  those  observations 
and  meditations  of  His  now  bore  their  hundredfold 
fruit  in  this  great  sermon  so  full  of  all  kinds  of  in- 
struction and  illustration,  and  all  taken  from  the 


THE  SOWER  WHO  WENT  FORTH  TO  SOW     11 

field  they  had  just  left  behind  them.  And  then,  at 
the  petition  of  His  disciples,  our  Lord  expounded 
His  homely  riddle  about  the  sower  and  his  seed, 
till  we  have  both  that  riddle  and  its  exposition  in 
our  hands  to-night  in  this  far-off  island  of  the  sea. 

"  The  seed  is  the  Word  of  God,"  says  our  Lord. 
That  is  to  say,  every  true  preacher  sows  the  Word 
of  God  with  both  his  hands,  and  he  sows  nothing 
else  but  the  Word  of  God.  The  true  preacher  must 
put  nothing  else  into  his  seed-basket  every  Sabbath 
morning,  but  the  pure  and  unadulterated  Word  oi 
God.  The  Christian  pulpit  is  not  set  up  for  any 
service  but  one :  and  that  one  and  sovereign  service 
is  the  sowing  of  the  seed  of  God  in  the  minds  and 
in  the  hearts  and  in  the  lives  of  men.  The  platform 
and  the  press  are  set  up  in  God's  providence  for 
the  sowing  broadcast  of  His  mind  and  will  also: 
but  the  evangelical  pulpit  has  an  exclusiveness  and 
a  sanctification  about  it  altogether  peculiar  to  itself. 
Six  days  shalt  thou  read  and  write  history,  and 
biography,  and  philosophy,  and  poetry,  and  news- 
papers, and  novels,  but  this  is  the  Day  the  Lord 
has  made.  And  He  has  made  this  Day,  and  has 
specially  sanctified  and  hedged  round  this  Day,  for 
the  sowing  of  that  intellectual  and  spiritual  seed 
which  springs  up,  and  which  alone  springs  up,  to 
everlasting  life. 

"And  as  he  sowed,  some  seeds  fell  by  the  wayside. 
This  is  he  that  heareth  the  Word  of  the  Kingdom, 
and  understandeth  it  not."  Our  Lord  was  a  man 
of  understanding  Himself,  and  He  laboured  con- 
tinually to  make  His  disciples  to  be  men  of  under- 


12  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 

standing  like  Himself.  And  all  His  ministers,  to 
this  day,  who  are  to  be  of  any  real  and  abiding 
benefit  to  their  people,  must  labour  first  to  make 
themselves  men  of  understanding,  and  then  to  make 
their  people  the  same.  And  if  the  people  are  void 
of  understanding  their  ministers  are  largely  to  blame 
for  that.  There  are  people,  indeed,  in  every  con- 
gregation that  our  Lord  Himself  could  not  make 
men  of  understanding :  at  the  same  time,  it  is  the 
ministers  who  are  mostly  at  fault  if  their  people 
remain  stupid  in  their  intellects  and  dark  in  their 
hearts.  "  Understandest  thou  what  thou  readest  ?  " 
said  Philip  the  once  deacon,  and  now  the  evangelist, 
to  the  dark  treasurer  of  Queen  Candace.  "  How  can 
I  ?  "  answered  that  wise  man  from  the  East.  And 
Philip  went  up  into  the  chariot  and  sowed  the 
seed  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  in  the  understand- 
ing and  in  the  heart  of  that  black  but  comely  con- 
vert to  the  cross  of  Christ.  And  the  first  duty  of 
every  minister  is  to  make  his  pulpit  like  that  chariot 
of  Ethiopia.  The  first  duty  of  every  occupant  of  a 
pulpit  is  to  sow  the  Word  of  God  and  the  Word 
of  God  only,  and  his  second  duty  is  to  see  that  the 
people  understand  what  they  read  and  hear.  "And 
Ezra  the  scribe  stood  upon  a  pulpit  of  wood,  which 
they  had  made  for  the  purpose.  And  Ezra  opened 
the  book  in  the  sight  of  the  people :  for  he  was 
above  the  people :  and  when  he  opened  it  all  the 
people  stood  up.  And  he  read  in  the  book  in  the 
law  of  God  distinctly,  and  gave  the  sense,  and 
caused  the  people  to  understand  the  reading," — till 
his  reading  was  so  distinct,  and  so  full  of  under- 


THE  SOWER  WHO  WENT  FORTH  TO  SOW     13 

standing,  that  it  brought  forth  fruit  in  some  of  his 
hearers  an  hundredfold.  One  of  the  last  things 
that  Sir  Thomas  Grainger  Stewart  said  to  me  on 
his  death-bed  was  this : — "  Sometimes  make  them 
understand  the  psalm  before  you  invite  them  to  sing 
it,  for  we  have  often  sung  it  in  my  time  not  know- 
ing what  it  meant."  It  was  a  wise  counsel  and 
given  in  a  solemn  hour.  But,  then,  there  is  no 
pulpit  duty  more  difficult  than  just  to  say  the  right 
word  of  understanding  at  the  right  moment,  and 
not  a  word  too  much  or  too  little.  Dr.  Davidson 
of  Aberdeen  was  the  best  at  that  one  single  word 
of  explanation  and  direction  of  any  minister  I  ever 
sat  under.  He  said  just  one  weighty  word,  in  his 
own  weighty  way,  and  then  we  all  sang  in  the  West 
Church,  as  Paul  made  them  sing  in  the  Corinthian 
Church,  with  the  understanding,  and  with  the 
spirit  also. 

"  And  understandeth  it  not.  Then  cometh  the 
wicked  one  and  catcheth  away  the  seed  that  has 
just  been  sown."  There  is  a  house  I  am  sometimes 
in  at  the  hour  of  family  worship.  In  that  house, 
after  the  psalm  and  the  scripture  and  the  prayer, 
the  head  of  the  house  remains  on  his  knees  for,  say, 
five  or  six  seconds  after  he  utters  the  Amen.  And 
then  he  rises  off  his  knees,  slowly  and  reverently,  as 
if  he  were  still  in  the  King"'s  presence,  with  his  eyes 
and  his  whole  appearance  full  of  holy  fear  and  holy 
love.  And  I  notice  that  all  his  children  have 
learned  to  do  like  their  father.  And  I  have 
repeatedly  heard  his  guests  remark  on  that  reveren- 
tial habit  of  his,  and  I  have  heard   them  confess 


14  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

that  they  went  home  rebuked,  as  I  have  often  gone 
home  rebuked  and  instructed  myself.  There  is 
another  houso  I  am  in  sometimes,  which  is  llie  very 
opposite  of  that.  They  have  family  worship  also, 
but  before  he  has  said  Amen  the  head  of  the  house 
is  up  off  his  knees  and  has  begun  to  give  his  orders 
about  this  and  that  to  his  servants.  He  Yias  been 
meditating  the  order,  evidently,  all  the  time  of  the 
prayer.  It  must  have  been  in  such  a  house  or  in 
such  a  synagogue  as  that  in  which  our  Lord  saw 
the  wicked  one  coming  and  catching  away  the  seed 
that  was  sown  in  the  worshippers'  hearts.  I  think 
I  have  told  you  before  about  a  Sabbath  night  I 
once  spent  long  ago  in  a  farm-house  up  among  the 
Grampians.  Before  family  worship  the  old  farmer 
had  been  reading  to  me  out  of  a  book  of  notes  he 
had  taken  of  Dr.  John  Duncan''s  sermons  when  they 
were  both  young  men.  After  worship  I  got  up 
and  spoke  first  and  said — "  Let  us  have  some  more 
of  those  delightful  notes.'"  "  Excuse  me,"  said  my 
friend,  "but  we  all  take  our  candles  immediately 
after  worship."  The  wicked  one  was  prevented  and 
outwitted  every  night  in  that  house,  and  he  has 
been  prevented  and  outwitted  in  the  houses  of  all 
the  children  who  were  brought  up  in  that  rare  old 
farm-house  up  among  the  Grampians. 

And,  then,  the  stony  places  is  he  that  heareth 
the  word  with  joy,  yet  hath  no  root  in  himself.  I 
do  not  know  any  congregation,  anywhere,  that 
hears  the  Word  of  God  with  such  joy  as  this  congre- 
gation. As  for  instance.  All  last  summer,  every 
Monday,  I  got  letters  full  of  joy  over  the  preaching 


THE  SOWER  WHO  WENT  FORTH  TO  SOW     15 

that  had  been  provided  in  this  pulpit.  And  then 
when  I  came  home,  in  every  house  and  on  every 
street  I  was  met  with  salutations  of  joy  over  Dr. 
George  Adam  Smith's  last  sermon.  The  Professor's 
text  was  this, — "  Lord,  teach  us  to  pray."  Now, 
that  is  three  weeks  o^o,  and  the  seed  has  had 
plenty  of  time  to  take  root.  And  I  am  sent  here 
to-night  to  ask  you  whether  that  so  joyful  hearing 
that  Sabbath  night  has  come,  in  your  case,  to  any 
fruit  Have  you  prayed  more  these  last  three 
weeks?  Have  you  been  oftener,  and  longer  at  a 
time,  on  your  knees  ?  Have  you  been  like  Haly- 
burton's  mother — have  you  prayed  more,  both  with 
and  for  your  son,  these  three  weeks  ?  I  did  not 
iicar  the  sermon,  and  I  could  not  get  anybody 
to  tell  me  very  much  about  it,  beyond — O  the 
eloquence  and  the  delight  of  it !  But  some  of  you 
heard  it,  and  God's  demand  of  you  to-night  is, — 
with  what  result  on  your  heart,  on  your  temper, 
on  your  walk  and  conversation,  on  your  character.? 
Or,  is  it  written  in  heaven  about  you  since  that 
Sabbath  night, — 'This  is  he  who  hears  sermons  with 
such  applause,  but  has  never  had  any  root  in  him- 
self. This  is  he  who  thinks  that  sermons  are 
provided  by  God  and  man  for  him  to  praise  or 
lame  as  suits  his  fancy.'  And,  then,  to  keep  His 
uiinisters  from  being  puffed  up  with  such  idle  praise 
as  yours,  God  says  to  them — "  Thou  son  of  man, 
the  children  of  thy  people  are  still  talking  of  thee 
by  the  walls  and  in  the  doors  of  their  houses. 
And  they  come  to  hear  thy  words,  but  they  will 
not  do  them.     Lo,  thou  art  unto  them  as  one  that 


16  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

has  a  pleasant  voice,  and  can  play  well  on  an 
instrument.  For  they  hear  thy  words,  and  show 
much  love,  but  they  do  them  not.  But  the  day 
will  come  when  they  shall  give  an  account  of  all 
that  they  have  heard,  and  then  shall  they  know 
that  a  prophet  of  mine  has  been  among  them." 

And  then  he  that  receiveth  the  seed  among 
thorns  is  he  in  whom  the  Word  of  God  is  simply 
choked,  till  he  becometh  unfruitful.  There  is  only 
so  much  room  and  sap  and  strength  in  any  fiel  1 ; 
and  unless  the  ground  is  cleared  of  all  other 
things,  the  sap  and  the  strength  that  should  go 
to  grow  the  corn  will  be  all  drunk  up  by  thoins 
and  briars.  You  understand,  my  brethren  ?  You 
have  only  so  much  time,  and  strength,  and  mind, 
and  heart,  and  feeling,  and  passion,  and  emotion, 
and  if  you  expend  all  these,  or  the  greater  part 
of  all  these,  on  other  things,  you  will  have  ull 
that  the  less  corn,  even  if  you  have  any  corn  at 
all.  The  thorns  in  the  fields  of  your  hearts  are 
such  things  as  contentions,  and  controversies,  and 
debates,  and  quarrels.  All  these  are  so  many  beds 
of  thorns  that  not  only  starve  your  soul,  but  tear 
it  to  pieces  as  you  wade  about  among  them.  And 
not  thorns  only,  but  even  good  things  in  their 
own  places,  if  they  are  allowed  in  your  corn-field, 
they  will  leave  you  little  bread  for  yourself  and  for 
your  children,  and  little  seed  corn  for  next  spring. 
Rose-bushes  even,  and  gooseberry-bushes,  beds  of 
all  sweet-tasting,  and  sweet-smelling  herbs,  are  all 
in  their  own  place  in  your  garden ;  but  you  must 
have  corn  in  your  field.     Corn  is  the  staff  of  your 


THE  SOWER  WHO  WENT  FORTH  TO  SOW     17 

life.  And  after  corn,  then  flowers  and  fruits ;  but 
not  before.  After  your  soul  is  well  on  the  way 
to  salvation,  then  other  things  ;  but  salvation  first. 
Lest  the  cares  of  this  world,  and  the  deceitfulness 
of  riches,  and  the  lust  of  other  things,  entering  in, 
choke  your  soul,  till  it  is  starved  and  lost :  your 
soul  and  you. 

We  are  indebted  to  Luke  for  many  things  that 
we  would  not  have  had  but  for  his  peculiar  care, 
and  industry,  and  exactness,  as  a  sacred  writer. 
And  he  reports  to  us  one  otherwise  unreported 
word  of  our  Lord's  about  the  good  ground  that 
has  its  own  lessons  for  us  all  to-night.  "  That  on 
the  good  ground  are  they,  which  is  an  honest 
and  good  heart,  having  heard  the  Word,  keep 
it,  and  bring  forth  fruit  with  patience."  An 
honest  heart.  Now,  there  are  honest,  and  there 
are  dishonest,  hearts  in  every  congregation.  The 
honest  heart  is  the  heart  of  the  hearer  who  has 
come  up  here  to-night  with  a  right  intention.  His 
motive  in  being  here  is  an  honest  motive.  This 
is  God's  house,  and  that  honest  hearer  has  come 
to  hear  what  God  will  say  to  him  to-night.  His 
eye  is  single,  and  this  whole  house  has  been  full 
of  light  to  him  to-night.  Already,  to-night,  he 
has  heard  words  that  he  intends  to  keep  to-morrow  : 
to  lay  them  up  in  his  heart  and  to  practise  them 
in  his  life.  He  is  an  honest  man,  and  God  will 
deal  honestly  by  him.  But  there  are  others,  it  is 
to  be  feared,  in  every  congregation.  They  were  in 
our  Lord's  congregations,  and  they  are  in  ours. 
Hearers  of  the  Word,  with  hearts   that  are  not 

B 


18  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

honest.  They  are  in  God's  house,  but  they  are 
not  here  to  meet  with  God,  or  to  understand,  and 
lay  up,  and  keep,  His  Word.  They  are  here  to 
see  and  to  be  seen.  They  are  here  to  meet  with 
some  one  who  is  to  be  met  with  here.  They  love 
music,  and  they  are  here  because  the  music  is  good. 
Or  they  have  some  still  more  material  motive  ;  their 
office  or  their  shop  brings  them  here.  Now,  when 
God's  Spirit  says,  Thou  art  the  man  !  Admit  it. 
Confess  it  where  you  sit.  Receive  this  word  into 
a  good  and  honest  heart,  and  say.  Surely  the  Lord 
is  in  this  place ;  and  I  knew  it  not.  Say,  this  is 
none  other  but  the  house  of  God,  and  this  is  the 
gate  of  heaven.  Say  that  God  has  been  found  of 
one  man,  at  any  rate,  who  did  not  come  here 
to-night  to  seek  Him.  And  come  up  here  hence- 
forth with  that  same  good  and  honest  heart  that 
you  have  had  created  within  you  to-night,  and 
you  also  will  yet  live  to  bring  forth  fruit  thirty- 
fold,  perhaps  sixty-fold,  and  even  an  hundred-fold. 


THE  MAN  WHICH  SOWED  GOOD  SEED    19 


II 

THE  MAN  WHICH  SOWED  GOOD  SEED 
IN  HIS  FIELD,  BUT  HIS  ENEMY  CAME 
AND  SOWED  TARES  AMONG  THE 
WHEAT 

HE  Son  of  Man  lived  in  obscurity  in 
Nazareth  till  He  began  to  be  about 
thirty  years  of  age,  growing  in 
wisdom  every  day,  and  every  day 
saying  to  Himself — 

—What  if  Earth 
Be  but  the  shadow  of  Heaven,  and  things  therein 
Each  to  other  like  more  than  on  Earth  is  thought? 

And  one  day  in  His  solitary  and  meditating  walks 
He  came  on  a  field  in  which  blades  of  tares  were 
springing  up  among  the  blades  of  the  wheat  all 
over  the  field.  When,  meeting  the  husbandman. 
He  said  to  him,  "From  whence  hath  thy  field 
these  tares  ?"  "An  enemy  hath  done  it,"  said  the 
heart-broken  husbandman.  "  While  men  slept, 
mine  enemy  came  and  sowed  tares  among  the 
wheat,  and  went  his  way."     It  was  a  most  diabolical 


20  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

act.  Diabolical  malice,  and  dastardly  cowardice, 
taken  together,  could  have  done  no  more.  That 
enemy  envied  with  all  his  wicked  heart  the  hus- 
bandman''s  well-ploughed,  well-weeded,  well-sowed, 
and  well-harvested,  field,  till  he  said  within  himself, 
Surely  the  darkness  shall  cover  me.  And  when 
the  night  fell  he  filled  his  seed-basket,  and  went 
out  under  cover  of  night  and  sowed  the  whole  field 
over  with  his  diabolical  seed.  And  when  our  Lord 
looked  on  the  wheat-field  all  destroyed  with  tares, 
He  took  that  field,  and  that  husbandman's  faith 
and  patience  with  his  field,  and  put  them  both 
into  this  immortal  sermon  of  His.  And  here  are 
we  to-night  learning  many  much-needed  lessons 
among  our  tare-sowed  fields  also :  learning  the 
very  same  faith  and  patience  that  so  impressed 
and  pleased  our  Lord  in  this  sorely-tried  husband- 
man. And  at  the  end  of  the  world,  when  he  is 
told  about  us,  as  we  have  been  told  about  him, 
that  husbandman  will  say,  It  was  well  worth  a 
thousand  fields  of  wheat  to  be  the  means  of 
teaching  a  little  patience  and  a  little  long-suffering 
even  to  one  over-anxious  and  impatient  heart. 
For,  what  that  husbandman  knew  not  about  his 
field  when  he  bore  himself  so  wisely  beside  it,  he 
will  know  when  the  harvest  is  the  end  of  the 
world,  and  when  the  reapers  are  the  angels. 

Then  Jesus  sent  the  multitude  away,  and  went 
into  the  house ;  and  His  disciples  came  unto  Him, 
saying.  Declare  unto  us  the  parable  of  the  tares 
of  the  field.     And  He  gave  them  an  interpretation 


THE  MAN  WHICH  SOWED  GOOD  SEED    21 

of  His  parable,  which  was  to  be  the  authoritative 
and  the  all-comprehending  interpretation  from  that 
time  to  the  end  of  the  world.  At  the  same  time, 
and  in  and  under  that  interpretation  of  His,  there 
are  occasional,  and  provisional,  and  contempor- 
aneous, interpretations  and  applications  of  this 
parable,  that  are  to  be  made  by  each  reader  of 
this  parable,  according  to  his  own  circumstances 
and  experiences.  I  will  not  take  up  your  time, 
therefore,  with  the  Donatist  controversy  in  the 
days  of  Augustine ;  nor  with  the  great  struggles 
for  toleration  and  liberty  of  thought  recorded  for 
all  time  in  the  Areopagitica,  and  in  such  like 
noble  arguments.  Only,  there  will  no  doubt  yet 
emerge  and  arise  new  Donatist  debates,  and  new 
demands  for  toleration  of  opinion,  even  of  erroneous 
opinion,  and  with  that,  new  calls  for  the  utmost 
caution,  and  faith,  and  patience,  especially  in 
church  censures,  and  in  church  discipline.  Occa- 
sions will  arise,  and  may  be  at  the  door,  when  we 
must  be  prepared,  both  by  knowledge  and  by 
temper,  to  play  our  part  in  them  like  this  husband- 
man in  his  field.  Occasions  and  opportunities 
when  the  discretion,  and  the  patience,  and  the 
long-faith  of  this  wise-hearted  husbandman,  will 
be  memorable  and  will  be  set  before  us  for  our 
imitation  and  our  repetition. 

Occasions  have  often  arisen  in  the  past,  and 
they  will  often  arise  in  the  future,  when  a  great 
alarm  will  be  taken  at  the  new  discoveries,  the 
new  opinions,  and  the  new  utterances,  of  men  who 
are  under  our  j  urisdiction,  as  the  tares  were  under 


22  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

the  jurisdiction  of  the  servants  in  the  parable. 
Now,  for  what  other  purpose,  do  you  think,  was 
this  parable  spoken  to  us  by  our  Master,  but  to 
impose  upon  us  patience,  and  caution,  and  con- 
fidence in  the  truth,  and  to  deliver  us  from  all 
panic,  and  all  precipitancy,  and  all  sudden  execution 
of  our  fears?  This  is  a  very  wonderful  parable. 
No  parable  of  them  all  is  more  so.  Very  wonderful. 
Very  startling,  indeed.  Very  arresting  to  us.  For, 
even  when  the  wheat-field  was  all  covered  with 
real,  and  not  doubtful,  tares,  the  wise  husbandman 
still  held  in  the  hands  of  his  indignant  and  devoted 
servants.  Even  when,  demonstrably,  and  admittedly, 
and  scandalously,  and  diabolically,  an  enemy  had 
done  it, — No  !  said  this  master  of  himself,  as  well 
as  of  his  servants, — No  !  Have  patience.  Let  the 
tares  alone.  Lest  while  you  gather  up  the  tares, 
you  root  up  also  the  wheat  with  them.  Let  both 
grow  together  till  the  harvest.  And  then  I  will 
give  the  reapers  their  instructions  myself. 

My  friends,  if  any  one  but  our  Lord  had  said 
that,  or  anything  like  that,  in  the  presence  of  any 
actual  instances  of  real  or  supposed  tares,  what 
would  we  have  said  to  him,  and  said  about  him  ? 
I  will  not,  for  reverence  sake,  repeat  what  we  would 
have  said.  But  if  our  Divine  Lord  actually  uttered 
these  great  and  wonderful  words,  full  of  such  calm- 
ness, and  such  patience,  and  such  toleration,  and 
such  endurance ;  such  endurance  even  of  evil, — shall 
we  not  take  His  wonderful  words  to  heart,  and 
humbly  and  believingly  apply  them,  where  it  is  at 


THE  MAN  WHICH  SOWED  GOOD  SEED    23 

all  possible ;  even  erring,  if  err  we  must,  on  the 
safe  side ;  and  leave  it  to  Him,  when  we  at  all  can, 
to  give  His  own  orders  about  His  own  field  at  the 
end  of  the  world  ?  And,  if  we  leave  it  to  Him, 
it  will  be  a  sight  on  that  day  to  see  how  He  will 
vindicate  our  patience  and  His  own  parable. 

Look  back  for  a  moment  at  what  He  Himself 
here  calls  some  of  the  "scandals"  in  His  Kingdom, 
and  you  will  be  fortified  in  your  toleration  of  many 
things  of  that  kind  in  time  to  come.  Everybody 
has  heard  of  the  scandal  of  Galileo,  to  the  shame 
of  the  Church  of  his  day.  And  we  are  not  without 
our  own  scandals  in  our  own  day.  The  highest 
dignitary  now  in  the  Church  of  England  was,  not 
very  long  ago,  all  but  rooted  up,  as  all  but  tares, 
both  he  and  his  beautiful  writings.  Whereas  now 
he  is  where  he  is  by  universal  acclamation.  In 
Fitzjames  Stephen's  brilliant  four-days'  speech  be- 
fore the  Court  of  Arches,  that  learned  and  eloquent 
counsel  said, — "  My  Lord,  such  differences  have 
always  existed  in  the  Church.  I  might  quote  in 
favour  of  the  accused  party,  some  of  the  highest 
names  in  the  Church  of  England.  Hooker  was 
charged,  in  his  day,  with  subverting  the  authority 
of  Scripture.  Cudworth  was  called  an  atheist. 
Tillotson's  life  was  embittered  by  persecution. 
Bishop  Burnet,  whose  work  afterwards  became  a 
theological  text-book,  was  actually  twice  censured 
by  the  Lower  House  of  Convocation.  .  .  .  My 
Lord,  the  one  party  viewing  history,  and  criticism, 
and   science,  accept  these  results   with   gladness, 


24  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

and  with  candour,  and  the  other  party  tremble 
before  them.  The  one  party  would  say  with 
Hooker  that  to  detract  from  the  dignity  of  these 
things  is  to  do  injury  even  to  God  Himself,  who 
being  that  Light  which  no  man  can  approach  to, 
has  sent  us  these  lesser  lights  as  sparkles,  resembling, 
so  far,  the  briglit  fountain  from  which  they  spring." 
I  will  not  quote  what  Stephen  said  about  the  other 
party.  But  he  went  on  to  say,  "  That,  my  Lord,  is 
the  real  scope,  tendency,  and  design  of  this  prosecu- 
tion, and  that,  as  I  said  before,  is  its  explanation, 
but  not  its  justification." 

And  a  greater  than  Fitzjames  Stephen,  the 
Golden-mouth  of  the  English  Church  himself,  says 
in  his  Discourse  of  the  Liberty  of  Prophesying — 
"  Let  all  errors  be  as  much  and  as  zealously  sup- 
pressed as  may  be  :  but  let  it  be  done  by  such 
means  as  are  proper  instruments  for  their  suppres- 
sion ;  by  preaching  and  disputation,  by  charity 
and  sweetness,  by  holiness  of  life,  by  assiduity 
of  exhortation,  by  the  Word  of  God  and  prayer. 
For  these  ways  are  the  most  natural,  the  most 
prudent,  the  most  peaceable,  and  the  most  effectual, 
instrument  for  the  suppression  of  error.  Only,  let 
not  men  be  hasty  in  calling  every  disliked  opinion 
by  the  name  of  heresy.  And  if  men  will  say  that 
in  saying  this  I  persuade  to  indifFerency,  there  is 
no  help  for  me ;  I  must  bear  it  as  I  can.  And  I 
am  not  without  remedy,  for  my  patience  will  help 
me,  and  I  will  take  my  course." 

And  on  the  same  subject  a  greater  than  either 
Stephen  or  Taylor  has  said  :  has  sung — 


THE  MAN  WHICH  SOWED  GOOD  SEED    25 

Let  not  the  people  be  too  swift  to  judge^ 
As  one  that  reckons  on  the  blades  in  field, 
Or  ere  the  corn  be  ripe.     For  I  have  seen 
The  thorn  frown  rudely  all  the  winter  long. 
And  after  bear  the  rose  upon  its  top  : 
And  bark,  that  all  the  way  across  the  sea 
Ran  straight  and  speedy,  perish  at  the  last. 
E'en  in  the  haven's  mouth. 

But  all  that  will  only  the  more  provoke  some  of  you 
to  retort  on  me  and  to  demand, — Do  you  really 
mean  to  say,  that  so  and  so  are  to  be  tolerated, 
and  tolerated  where  they  are  .?  Now,  I  will  not 
answer  that  which  you  put  so  passionately;  for  I 
am  not  debating  with  you,  but  am  teaching  to  the 
teachable  among  you,  a  little  of  what  I  have  been 
taught  myself.  And,  moreover,  what  I  have  acted 
on  more  than  once  as  I  had  opportunity,  and  have 
proved  it  to  be  true  and  trustworthy  teaching,  and 
have  never  repented  it.  And  if,  instead  of  debating 
about  it,  you  also  will  receive  it,  and  will  act  upon 
it,  you  also  will  live  to  prove  it  true.  Now,  with 
all  this,  I  have  not  gone  out  of  my  way  one  inch 
to-night  to  seek  out  this  wonderful  parable,  and 
its  so  timeous  interpretation.  Not  one  inch.  For 
it  met  me  in  the  very  middle  of  my  way  to  you. 
And,  all  I  could  examine  it,  and  excogitate  it,  and 
go  round  about  it,  and  look  at  it  in  every  light, 
and  indeed  try  to  escape  it — I  could  make  nothing 
else  out  of  it  than  what  I  have  now  said.  But  the 
day  will  declare  both  the  eternal  truth,  and  the 
present  truth,  about  this  parable  of  the  wheat  and 
the  tares.  On  that  day.  He  who  preached  this 
parable  will  winnow   out,  and   will   burn   up  all 


26  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

false  interpretations  of  it,  and  mine  among  the 
rest.  Only,  may  you  and  I  be  judged  more  tenderly 
and  forgivingly  by  Him  on  that  day  than  we  have 
many  a  time  judged  other  erring  men  ! 

The  whole  field  of  letters,  also,  is  more  or  less  like 
this  husbandman's  tare-tangled  field.  You  can 
get  at  the  pure  truth  in  print  scarcely  in  anything. 
You  can  with  difficulty  get  a  book  of  the  past,  and 
much  less  a  magazine,  or  a  journal,  or  a  newspaper 
of  the  passing  day,  that  is  not  all  sown  over  with 
the  author's  own  seed-basket ;  all  sown  over,  now 
with  partiality,  and  now  with  antipathy.  That 
field  in  Galilee  was  a  study  in  malice  to  our  Lord  : 
and  there  are  fields  all  around  us  to-day  of  the  same 
sickening  spectacle.  You  are  a  public  writer ;  and 
so  many  are  the  collisions  of  interests,  and  ambitions, 
and  pursuits,  and  competitions ;  and  such  is  the 
pure  malice,  sometimes,  of  your  own  tare-filled 
heart,  that  we  cannot  get  from  you  the  naked  and 
real  truth  about  that  cause  or  that  man.  You 
simply  will  not  let  us  get  at  the  real,  unadulterated, 
unvarnished,  untampered-with,  truth.  And,  besides, 
such  are  the  resources  and  appliances  of  civilisation 
in  our  day,  that  you  can  sow  your  evil  seed  under 
cover  of  anonymity,  and  your  best  friend  will  never 
know  whose  hand  it  was  that  stabbed  him  in  the  dark. 
You  are  reviewing  a  book  by  tongue  or  by  pen. 
The  author  is  not  liked  by  you,  or  by  your  party, 
or  by  your  employer ;  or,  you  are  an  author  your- 
self, and  the  writer  of  the  book  before  you  has  run 
away  with  your  popularity  and  your  profits.  You 
would  need  to  be  a  saint  to  review  his  new  book 


THE  MAN  WHICH  SOWED  GOOD  SEED   27 

aright.  You  would  need  to  be  an  angel  to  say  in 
your  paper  about  him  and  about  his  book,  what 
you  would  like  him  to  say  in  his  paper  about  you 
and  about  your  book.  And,  indeed,  considering 
what  this  world  is,  and  what  the  human  heart  is, 
there  is  far  more  of  such  angelic  saintliness  abroad 
in  it  than  you  would  expect  to  see,  unless  you  were 
actually  on  the  out-look  for  it.  But,  fair  writing, 
and  true  writing,  and  loving  writing,  or  no,  we 
have  no  choice.  We  must  act  like  this  wise 
husbandman;  we  must  take  our  history,  and  our 
biography,  and  our  politics,  and  our  art,  and  our 
law,  and  our  criticism,  and  our  morning  and  evening 
and  weekly  newspapers,  as  they  are — tares  and  all. 
Lest  if  we  forbid  the  tares  entering  our  house  we 
shut  out  both  truth  and  love  with  them.  Let 
them  grow  together  until  the  harvest ;  and,  mean- 
time, make  them  all  so  many  means  of  this  and 
that  grace  to  you.  In  one  of  his  noblest  papers 
Dr.  Newman  vindicates  the  study  of  the  great 
classics — Greek,  Latin,  and  English — in  spite  of  the 
basketfuls  of  impurity  that  are  sown  so  broadcast 
in  some  of  them.  And  the  old  scholar  and  saint 
argues  that  in  the  interest  of  the  very  purity  of 
mind  and  heart  that  we  fear  sometimes  are  so  early 
poisoned  in  those  shining  fields.  And  now,  before 
leaving  this  point,  I  will  add  this — I  am  not  an 
author,  nor  a  journalist,  but  a  preacher,  and  I  will 
therefore  add  this — that  he  is  a  happy  preacher 
who  has  lived  through  many  times  and  seasons  of 
temptation,  and  has  never  sown  some  of  the  tares 
of  his  own  temper,  and  of  his  own  partial  mind, 


28  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 

in  his  preaching,  and  even  in  his  prayers.  And  I, 
for  one,  am  not  that  happy  preacher.  Thomas 
Boston  used  to  say,  that  of  all  men  who  needed 
the  imputation  of  Christ's  all-round  righteousness, 
preachers  and  pastors  were  those  men. 

And  then  to  come  still  closer  to  ourselves  than  even 
that.  Such  is  the  versatility,  and  the  spirituality, 
and  the  inwardness,  of  our  Lord's  words  in  this 
wonderful  parable,  that  they  apply  with  the  very 
greatest  support  and  comfort  to  the  heart  of  every 
sinful  man  also  under  his  own  all-searching  sancti- 
fication.  The  heart  of  a  great  sinner,  under  a  great 
sanctification,  is  the  field  of  all  fields.  All  other 
fields  are  but  parables  to  him  of  his  own  field. 
And  in  nothing  more  so  than  in  Satan  and  his 
Satanic  seed-basket.  And  worst  of  all,  and  saddest 
of  all,  that  Satanic  seed  is  here  almost  part  and 
parcel  of  the  very  field  itself.  For,  from  the  begin- 
ning, that  poisonous  seed  was,  somehow,  insinuated, 
and  was  already  buried  deep  in  the  very  original 
ground  and  soil  of  the  soul ;  and  so  insinuated, 
and  so  rooted,  that  with  the  best  husbandry 
it  is  never  got  out  of  the  soil  of  the  soul  in  this 
world.  It  is  like  those  poisonous  weeds  in  his  best 
fields  that  so  vex  the  husbandman's  heart.  Let 
him  plough  and  harrow,  and  plough  and  harrow 
again ;  let  him  change  his  seed,  let  him  rotate  his 
crops;  with  all  he  can  do,  there  is  the  accursed 
thing  always  coming  up,  choking  the  wheat, 
drinking  up  the  rain  and  the  sunshine  from  the 
wheat,  and  mocking  all  that  the  husbandman  and 
his  servants  can  do ;  mortifying  and  indeed  break- 


THE  MAN  WHICH  SOWED  GOOD  SEED    29 

ing  his  heart.  But  here  also, — and  startling  and 
staggering  to  read  it, — our  Lord  here  again  advises 
patience.  WJi?/  he  does  not  cleanse  the  honest  and 
good  ground  with  one  word  of  His  mouth,  He 
knows  Himself.  But  that  He  does  not  so  speak 
the  word,  and  so  cleanse  the  ground,  all  His  best 
saints  have  learned  to  their  bitter  suffering,  and 
their  heart-breaking  cost.  And  among  all  the 
counsels  and  comforts  He  speaks  to  our  tare- 
tortured  hearts,  this  wonderful,  this  even  staggering, 
counsel  is  heard  in  and  over  them  all.  '  Be  patient 
with  thine  own  sanctification,  as  with  some  other 
things,  till  I  come.  Behold,  the  husbandman 
waiteth  for  the  precious  fruit  of  the  earth.  Be  ye 
also  patient ;  for  the  coming  of  the  Lord  draweth 
nigh.  And  then  the  Son  of  Man  shall  send  forth 
His  angels,  and  they  shall  gather  out  of  His  king- 
dom all  things  that  offend.  And  then  shall  the 
righteous  shine  forth  as  the  sun  in  the  kino-dom 
of  their  Father.  Who  hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him 
liear.*" 


30  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 


III 

THE  MAN  WHO  TOOK  A  GRAIN  OF 
MUSTARD  SEED,  AND  SOWED  IT  LN 
HIS  FIELD 

UR  LORD'S  parables  are  all  so  many 
applications  of  what  we  sometimes 
call  the  Sacramental  Principle.  That 
is  to  say,  in  all  His  parables  our  Lord 
takes  up  something  in  nature  and 
makes  it  a  lesson  in  grace,  and  a  means  of  grace. 
The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  that,  He  said,  as 
often  as  He  saw  a  field  of  wheat  all  sown  over  with 
tares;  or  a  vineyard  with  a  husbandman  working 
in  it ;  or  a  lost  sheep ;  or  a  prodigal  son ;  or  a 
marriage  procession ;  or  a  few  little  children  play- 
ing at  marriages  and  funerals  in  the  market-place. 
Oar  Lord  so  lived  in  heaven :  He  had  His  whole 
conversation  so  completely  in  heaven :  His  whole 
mind  and  heart  and  life  were  so  absolutely  absorbed 
in  heaven,  that  everything  He  saw  on  earth,  in 
some  way  or  other,  spoke  to  Him  about  heaven, 
and  thus  supplied  Him  with  His  daily  texts,  and 
sermons,  and  parables,  about  heaven.     There  are 


THE  MAN  WHO  SOWED  A  MUSTARD  SEED    31 

some  men  who  are  full  of  eyes,  as  Scripture  says. 
They  are  full  of  eyes  within  and  without.  Now, 
our  Lord  was  one  of  those  men,  and  the  very  fore- 
most of  them.  He  was  full  of  eyes  by  nature,  and, 
over  and  above  nature,  He  had  an  extraordinary 
and  unparalleled  unction  from  the  Holy  One.  And 
thus  it  was  that  He  discovered  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  everywhere  and  in  everything.  Already  as 
a  child  He  had  deep  and  clear  eyes  both  in  His 
mind,  and  in  His  imagination,  and  in  His  heart. 
As  a  child  He  had  often  sown  the  least  of  all  seeds 
in  Joseph's  garden,  and  had  watched  that  mustard 
seed  springing  up  till  it  became  a  great  tree.  And 
with  what  delight  would  He  see  the  birds  of  the 
air  building  their  nests  in  the  branches  of  His  own 
high  mustard  tree.  And  how  He  would  feed  them, 
and  their  young  ones,  with  the  crumbs  that  fell 
from  His  mother's  table.  And  as  He  grew  in 
wisdom  and  in  stature.  He  would  come  to  read  in 
that  same  mustard  tree  yet  another  parable  about 
His  Father's  house  and  His  Father's  business.  Or, 
as  we  sometimes  say,  in  our  book-learned  way.  He 
would  see  in  that  mustard  tree  another  illustration 
of  that  Sacramental  Principle  which  was  ever 
present  with  Him. 

Now  it  was  not  so  much  the  great  size  of  the 
mustard  tree  that  took  such  a  hold  of  our  Lord's 
imagination.  It  was  rather  the  extraordinary 
smallness  of  the  mustard  seed.  And  that  was  a 
very  fruitful  moment  for  us  when  that  small  seed 
first  fell  into  our  Lord's  mind  and  heart.  For 
there  immediately  sprang  up  out  of  that  small  seed 


32  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

this  exquisite  little  parable.  This  little  parable, 
so  exquisitely  beautiful  in  its  literatui'e,  and  so  in- 
exhaustibly rich  in  its  applications  and  fulfilments 
in  no  end  of  directions. 

To  begin  with,  the  kingdom  of  heaven  in  Old 
Testament  times  was  like  a  grain  of  mustard  seed 
in  its  original  smallness,  and  then  in  the  great  tree 
that  it  ultimately  became.  Take  the  very  first  of 
all  the  mustard  seeds  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  on 
this  earth, — the  call  of  Abraliam.  What  could  be  a 
smaller  seed,  at  the  time,  than  the  emigration  of 
the  son  of  Terah  out  of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  and 
into  the  land  of  the  Canaanites  ?  Again,  what  seed 
could  well  be  smaller  than  that  ark  of  bulrushes, 
daubed  with  slime  and  pitch,  and  hidden  away 
among  the  flags  by  the  river's  brink  ?  And,  then, 
what  less  likely  to  spring  up  into  all  the  psalms 
and  hymns  and  spiritual  songs  of  the  Church  of 
God  than  those  little  snatches  of  sacred  psalmody 
that  a  shepherd  boy  sang  to  his  few  sheep  on  the 
plains  of  Bethlehem  ?  And  to  come  to  Old  Testa- 
ment institutions  and  ordinances  also.  What  more 
like  a  mustard  seed  than  those  few  drops  of  mid- 
night blood  sprinkled  so  stealthily  on  the  lintels 
and  the  door-posts  of  those  slave-huts  in  the  land 
of  Egypt  ?  And  yet  all  the  passover-days  in  Israel, 
and  all  our  own  communion  days  in  the  Church  of 
Christ,  and  the  marriage  supper  of  the  Lamb  in 
His  Father's  house,  have  all  sprung  up,  and  will  yet 
spring  up,  out  of  that  small  mustard  seed.  And 
in  like  manner,  all  our  divinity  halls  had  their  first 
original  in  that  small  school  which  Samuel  set  up 


THE  MAN  WHO  SOWED  A  MUSTARD  SEED  33 

on  his  father's  Httle  property  at  Ramah.  Our 
own  Oxford,  and  Cambridge,  and  Edinburgh,  and 
Aberdeen,  and  many  more  such  like  schools  of 
the  prophets,  are  all  so  many  great  trees  that  have 
their  long  roots  struck  away  back  into  Samuel's 
little  mustard  seed.  As  also  when  the  carpenters 
of  Jerusalem  made  a  pulpit  of  wood  for  Ezra  and 
his  colleagues,  standing  on  which  they  read  in  the 
book  of  the  law  distinctly,  and  gave  the  sense,  and 
caused  the  people  to  understand  the  reading. 
There  you  have  the  first  small  seed  out  of  which 
ten  thousand  pulpits  have  sprung  up,  down  to  our 
own  day,  and  will  spring  up,  down  to  the  end  of  all 
evangelical  time.  Our  Lord  Himself  stood  upon  a 
pulpit  of  the  same  wood ;  and  so  did  Paul,  and 
so  did  Chrysostom,  and  so  did  Augustine,  and 
so  did  Calvin,  and  so  did  Thomas  Goodwin,  and 
so  did  Matthew  Henry,  and  a  multitude  of  pulpit 
expositors  of  the  Word  of  God  which  no  man 
can  number. 

Our  Lord,  you  may  depend  upon  it,  had  all 
those  Old  Testament  instances  in  the  eyes  of  His 
mind  when  He  spake  to  His  disciples  this  so  charm- 
ing and  so  instructive  little  parable.  But,  always 
remembering  His  own  mustard-seed  beginning,  and 
always  forecasting  what  was  yet  before  Him,  and 
before  the  whole  world  through  Him,  our  Lord 
must  always  have  looked  on  Himself  as  by  far  the 
most  wonderful  mustard  seed  that  ever  was  sown. 
Would  you  see  with  your  own  eyes  the  most 
wonderful  mustard  seed  that  ever  was  sown  in  all 
the  world.?     Come  and  look  at  that  Holy  Thing 


34  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

that  lies  in  the  manger  of  Bethlehem,  because  there 
is  no  room  in  the  inn.  Which,  surely,  was  the  least- 
looking  of  all  seeds,  but  is  now  the  greatest  among 
herbs.  And,  then,  what  a  seed  of  the  same  kind 
was  the  call  of  the  twelve  disciples,  and  the  con- 
version of  Saul  of  Tarsus,  and  the  conversion  of 
Augustine,  and  the  conversion  of  Luther,  and 
Wesley,  and  Chalmers,  and  General  Booth.  Paul's 
first  mission  to  the  Gentiles  also,  and  the  first 
missionary  that  landed  on  our  shores,  and  the  first 
printing-press,  and  the  first  sailing  of  the  May- 
Jlower,  and  so  on. 

But  it  is  time  to  come  to  ourselves.  And  among 
ourselves  that  small  mustard  seed  is  eminently  a 
parable  for  all  parents.  For  every  little  word  that 
a  parent  speaks  to  his  child  :  every  little  action  of 
a  parent  in  the  sight  of  his  child :  every  little 
attitude  even,  and  movement  of  his :  every  glance 
of  his  eye,  and  every  accent  of  his  voice — are  all  so 
many  mustard  seeds  sown  in  the  little  garden  of 
his  child's  mind  and  heart.  Every  little  Scripture 
lesson  learned  together  :  every  little  prayer  offered 
together :  and,  especially,  alone  together :  every 
little  occasional  word  to  explain,  and  to  make 
interesting,  his  child's  little  lesson  and  little  prayer 
every  wise  little  word  spoken  to  his  child  about  his 
own  and  his  child's  Saviour — every  such  small  seed 
dropped  by  a  parent's  hand  will  yet  spring  up  to 
his  everlasting  surprise,  and  to  his  everlasting 
harvest.  Let  all  parents,  then,  and  all  nurses,  and 
all  tutors,  and  all  schoolmasters,  and  all  who  have 
little  children  in  the  same  house  with  them,  lay  this 


THE  MAN  WHO  SOWED  A  MUSTARD  SEED  35 

little  parable  well  home  to  their  imagination  and 
to  their  heart.  Let  them  not  despise  the  day  of 
small  things.  Let  them  have  a  great  faith,  and  a 
great  assurance  of  faith,  in  such  small  things  as 
these.  Let  them  have  a  great  faith  in  Him,  and  in 
His  wisdom,  and  His  love,  and  in  His  faithfulness, 
who  is  continually,  both  in  nature  and  in  grace, 
folding  up  the  greatest  trees  in  the  smallest  seeds. 
And  never  more  so  than  in  the  way  He  folds  up 
your  child's  whole  future  in  your  little  acts  of  faith, 
and  prayer,  and  love,  and  wisdom,  and  patience, 
and  hopefulness,  done  at  home.  Despise  it  not,  for 
a  great  tree  is  in  it.  A  great,  a  fragrant,  and  a 
fruitful  tree,  under  which  you  will  one  day  sit 
rejoicing  in  the  shelter  of  it,  and  in  the  sweet 
fruitfulness  of  it. 

Long  before  your  son  is  ready  to  read  Butler  for 
himself,  he  will  be  a  daily  illustration  to  you  of 
Butler's  great  principle  of  acts,  habits,  character. 
A  little  wrong  act,  another  little  act  of  the  same 
kind,  and  another,  and  another,  and  another,  and 
another,  and  all  of  them  so  small,  that  not  one 
parent's  eye  in  a  thousand  can  so  much  as  see  them, 
the  thing  is  so  infinitely  small,  and  the  child  him- 
self is  still  so  small.  But,  oh  !  the  tremendous  and 
irreparable  oversight  for  you  and  for  him  !  Read 
Butler  for  yourself  till  you  have  that  wisest  of 
Englishmen  by  heart.  And  as  soon  as  your 
son  is  able  to  read  his  father's  best  books, 
buy  him  a  good  Butler  for  himself;  and,  some 
day  when  you  are  taking  a  long  holiday  walk 
together,  have  a  good  talk  with  him  about  that 


36  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

great  teacher,  both  hearing  your  son's  mind, 
and  giving  him  in  return  your  own  mind,  on  that 
great  man. 

Thomas  h.  Kempis's  genesis  of  a  fatal  temptation 
is  another  instance  of  a  mustard  seed.  An  evil 
thought ;  the  smallest  seed  of  an  evil  thought,  is, 
somehow,  sown  in  our  minds.  In  a  thousand 
unforeseen  ways  such  small  seeds  are  being  con- 
tinually insinuated  into  all  our  minds.  And  if 
they  are  let  enter  our  minds ;  if  they  are  for  a 
single  moment  entertained  in  our  minds ;  evil 
thoughts,  especially  if  they  are  of  certain  kinds, 
will  immediately  spread  themselves  out  in  our 
imaginations,  and  will  so  colour,  and  so  inflame, 
and  so  intoxicate,  our  imaginations,  that  our  wills, 
and  even  our  consciences,  are  completely  carried 
captive  before  we  are  aware,  till  another  deadly 
work  is  finished  in  body  and  in  soul.  A  thought, 
says  the  old  saint,  then  an  imagination,  then  a 
delight,  then  a  consent,  and  then  our  soul  is  sold 
for  nought.  The  kingdom  of  hell  also  is  like  a 
grain  of  mustard  seed,  which,  when  it  is  grown,  all 
the  obscene  birds  of  the  bottomless  pit  come  up 
and  breed  in  the  branches  thereof.  As  the  children's 
hymn  has  it  long  before  they  understand  it, 

So  our  little  errors 

Lead  the  soul  away, 
From  the  path  of  virtue 

Far  in  sin  to  stray. 

But,  blessedly,  there  is  another  side  to  all  that. 


THE  MAN  WHO  SOWED  A  MUSTARD  SEED  37 

There  is  a  genesis  and  a  genealogy  of  things  far 
more  joyful  to  dwell  on  than  that.  A  little  thought 
of  goodness,  and  of  truth,  and  of  love,  will  be  sown 
in  the  garden  of  the  soul.  A  little  thought,  as 
it  looks,  of  God,  of  Jesus  Christ,  of  heaven,  well 
watered  and  shone  upon  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  And 
then  that  little  thought  will  open  and  will  spread 
out  into  visions  of  beauty  that  will  sanctify  and 
fortify  the  soul,  till  the  young  soldier  of  Jesus 
Christ  will  step  forward  and  will  say  like  the  brave 
man  in  John  Bunyan — Set  down  my  name,  sir  ! 
When  the  heavenly  watchers,  seeing  all  that,  will 
raise  their  songs  over  him,  and  will  sing — 

Come  in,  come  in, 

Eternal  glory  thou  shalt  win  ! 

And  all  from  a  small  mustard  seed  of  one  good 
thought  sown  in  a  good  and  honest  heart. 

And  so  on,  in  a  thousand  other  regions  of  religion 
and  life.  But  I  will  close,  with  what  will  come 
home  to  us  all, — how  to  make  our  own  home  hapjjy. 
For,  what  is  the  real  secret  of  a  happy  home  :  a  life- 
long happy  home  ?  What  but  little  mustard  seeds 
of  love,  and  of  loving-kindness  ?  What  but  little 
acts,  and  little  habits,  and  then  a  great  herb  of 
character  ?  A  little  act  of  forethought.  A  little 
act  of  respect.  A  little  act  of  reverence.  A  little 
act  of  honour.  A  smile.  A  glance  of  the  eye.  A 
word  of  tact.  A  word  of  recognition.  A  word  of 
praise.  A  word  of  love.  A  little  gift.  A  little 
flower  in  a  little  glass  of  water.     And  many  more 


38  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 

things  too  small  to  put  into  a  sermon  for  grown-up 
men. 

With  smiles  of  peace  and  looks  of  love 
Lig^ht  in  our  dwellings  we  may  make, 

Bid  kind  good-humour  brighten  there. 
And  still  do  all  for  Jesus'  sake. 

Little  deeds  of  kindness, 

Little  acts  of  love, 
Help  to  make  home  happy 

Like  the  heaven  above. 


THE  MAN  WHO  CAST  SEED  39 


IV 

THE  MAN  WHO  CAST  SEED  INTO  THE 
GROUND  AND  IT  GREW  UP  HE  KNEW 
NOT  HOW 

R.  BRUCE  is  by  far  the  best  expositor 
of  this  exquisite  little  parable.  Dr. 
Bruce  is  always  himself.  That  is  to 
say,  he  is  always  autobiographical, 
always  experimental,  always  scientific, 
always  masculine,  always  full  of  bone  and  blood, 
always  strength  itself,  always  satisfying.  "  A  man's 
capacity,"  he  says,  "  to  expound  particular  portions 
of  Scripture  depends  largely  on  his  religious  experi- 
ences. For  here  it  holds  good,  as  in  other  spheres, 
that  we  only  find  what  we  ourselves  bring.  The 
case  is  the  writer's  own.  And  therefore  the  parable 
to  be  studied  has  been  to  him  for  many  years  a 
favourite  subject  of  thought,  and  a  fruitful  source 
of  comfort.  Viewed  as  a  repetition  in  parabolic 
form  of  the  Psalmist's  counsel, — Wait,  I  say,  on  the 
Lord."  Dr.  Bruce's  book  on  the  Parables  is,  to  my 
taste,  his  best  book.  And  then  the  exquisite  little 
parable  now  open  before  us,  shows  Dr.  Bruce,  as  I 
think,  at  his  very  best.      So  much  so,  that  if  there 


40  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

is  to  be  anything  of  the  nature  of  harvest  to  you 
to-night,  let  it  be  well  understood  that  Dr.  Bruce 
was  the  man  who  first  cast  the  seed  into  the 
ground,  but  who  fell  asleep  before  the  seed  had 
sprung  up  in  you  and  in  me. 

At  the  same  time,  the  originality,  and  the  fresh- 
ness, and  the  force,  of  Dr.  Bruce's  exposition,  is  all 
to  be  traced  back  to  the  originality,  and  the  fresh- 
ness, and  the  force,  of  the  parable  which  he  so 
excellently  expounds.  You  sometimes  say  to  me 
that  you  do  not  know  what  style  is.  You  have 
never  been  taught,  you  complain,  to  recognise  style 
when  you  see  it.  And  you  ask  me  never  to  pass  a 
piece  of  what  I  would  call  real  style  without  stop- 
ping and  calling  your  attention  to  it.  Well,  learn 
this  little  parable  by  heart,  and  say  it  to  yourselves, 
till  you  feel  the  full  taste  of  it  in  your  mouth,  and 
till  you  instinctively  spue  out  of  your  mouth  every- 
thing of  a  written  kind  that  is  not  natural,  and 
fresh,  and  forceful :  everything  that  is  not  noble, 
and  beautiful,  and  full  of  grace  and  truth,  like  this 
parable.  "  For  the  earth  bringeth  fruit  of  herself : 
first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  after  that  the  full  corn 
in  the  ear.''  A  little  child  might  have  said  it.  And 
He  who  did  say  it  makes  us  all  to  feel  like  little 
children,  with  the  naturalness,  and  the  simplicity, 
and  the  truth,  both  to  nature  and  to  grace,  of  His 
exquisite  words.     The  style  is  the  man. 

If  we  only  had  the  eyes  to  see  it,  there  is  not  a 
little  of  our  Lord's  teaching  and  preaching  that  is 
autobiographical,  and  experimental,  and  is  con- 
sequently of  the  nature  of  a  personal  testimony. 


THE  MAN  WHO  CAST  SEED  41 

For,  in  all  He  went  through,  He  went  through  it 
all  because  He  was  ordained  to  be  the  Firstborn 
among  many  brethren.  He  was  in  all  points  put  to 
school,  and  taught,  and  trained,  from  less  to  more, 
like  as  we  are.  He  was  Himself  so  led  as  to  be 
made  in  due  time  the  Leader  and  the  Forerunner 
of  the  whole  body  of  believers.  Till  He  is  able  at 
every  new  step  in  His  heavenward  way  to  turn 
round  and  say  to  us, — "  Follow  Me.  He  that 
followeth  Me  shall  not  walk  in  darkness,  but  shall 
have  the  Light  of  life."  I  like  to  look  for  our 
Lord's  own  footprints  in  every  sermon  of  His,  and 
what  I  look  for  I  almost  always  find.  As  here. 
For,  as  it  is  in  so  many  of  His  sermons,  and  as  it  is 
in  so  many  of  His  parables  that  illustrate  His 
sermons,  this  fine  parable  has,  as  I  think,  its  first 
fulfilment  in  our  Lord  Himself.  The  seed  of  the 
kingdom  was  cast  into  the  good  ground  of  His  own 
mind  and  heart  also,  and  that  from  a  child.  And 
the  seed  that  Mary,  and  Joseph,  and  the  doctors 
in  the  temple,  and  the  elders  in  the  synagogue,  all 
cast  into  that  good  ground  sprang  up,  they  knew 
not  how.  Till,  when  the  sickle  was  put  in  for  the 
first  time,  there  was  already  such  a  harvest  of  grace 
and  truth  that  they  knew  not  what  to  make  of  it. 
Yes.  It  was  so  in  Himself  also  :  there  was  first  the 
blade.  For  did  He  not  grow  up  before  them  as  a 
tender  plant  ?  And  was  He  not  subject  to  them  as 
a  little  Child  in  the  Lord  ?  And  was  it  not  so  that 
the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  rested  upon  Him,  they  knew 
not  how,  till  He  began  to  be  about  thirty  years  of 
age.'*     Matthew  Henry  sees  our  Lord  Himself  in 


42  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

this  parable,  and  I  am  glad  to  have  that  great  com- 
mentator's countenance  in  dwelling,  as  I  so  much 
love  to  dwell,  on  this  delightful  side  of  this  delight- 
ful scripture. 

And  what  was  true  of  the  Holy  Child  Jesus,  will 
be  true,  in  their  measure,  of  your  children  and  of 
mine.  And  if  God  the  Father  submitted  His  Son 
to  His  own  divine  law  of  gradual  growth,  and  slow 
increase,  and  an  imperceptible  ripening,  then  we 
must  not  grudge  to  submit  both  ourselves  and  our 
children  to  the  same  divine  ordinance.  We  must 
not  torment  ourselves  with  too  much  solicitude  and 
anxiety  about  our  children.  We  must  not  look  for 
old  heads  on  young  shoulders.  We  must  not  thrust 
in  the  sickle  on  the  same  day  as  we  sow  the  seed. 
We  must  not  expect  our  sons  to  come  all  at  once 
to  the  stature  of  perfect  men,  any  more  than  we 
did  ourselves.  We  were  not  perfect  patterns  at 
their  age  any  more  than  they  are.  We  were  not 
by  any  means  so  deep  in  the  divine  life  when  we 
were  young  men  as  we  now  are.  With  ourselves 
also  it  was  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  and  only  a 
long  time  after  that,  the  full  corn  in  the  ear.  We 
really  must  not  embitter  our  own  lives,  and  our 
children's  lives,  because  they  are  not  as  yet  run  into 
all  our  mould,  and  are  not  shaped  as  yet  into  all 
our  form  of  doctrine  and  manner  of  life.  We  must 
not  demand  of  them  that  they  shall  sit  up  at  night 
to  read  our  favourite  authors.  They  are  still 
young,  and  they  have  their  own  favourite  authors. 
Enough,  if,  say  thirty  or  forty  years  after  this, 
they  are  come  to  their  full  intellectual  and  spiritual 


THE  MAN  WHO  CAST  SEED  43 

manhood.  Enough,  if,  when  Ave  are  no  longer  here 
to  enjoy  such  masterpieces  with  them,  they  are  by 
that  time  discovering  the  hid  treasure,  say,  of 
Rutherford's  Letters,  and  Guthrie's  Saving  Interest, 
and  Baxter's  Sainfs  Rest,  and  Marshall's  Gospel 
Mystery,  and  William  Law's  immortal  treatises, 
and  are  winding  up  every  night  with  Bishop 
Andrewes's  Private  Devotions.  By  the  time  that 
we  are  done  with  those  great  guide-books  of  ours, 
and  are  distributing  our  choicest  treasures  to  our 
children,  we  will  write  their  names  under  our  own 
names  in  our  favourite  copies,  and  will  leave  it  to 
God  to  see  that  they  write  their  children's  names 
one  day  on  the  same  revered  pages.  It  was  only 
after  He  was  more  than  thirty  years  of  age  that 
we  come  on  the  Son  of  God  Himself  giving  up 
whole  nights  at  a  time  to  secret  prayer.  Be  you 
patient,  therefore,  brethren.  Behold  the  husband- 
man waiteth  for  the  precious  fruit  of  the  earth,  and 
hath  long  patience  for  it,  until  he  receive  the  early 
and  the  latter  rain.  Be  ye  also  patient,  stablish 
your  hearts :  for  the  coming  of  the  Lord  draweth 
nigh.  Be  you  very  thankful  for  the  smallest  signs 
of  grace  in  your  children.  Despise  not  the  day  of 
small  things.  Look  at  that  green  blade  in  the 
spring  field  stealing  its  way  so  timidly  round  the 
obstructing  clods  and  stones,  and  lifting  up  its 
hands  towards  the  sunshine  and  the  rain.  And 
look  for  the  same  thing  in  your  own  house,  and  be 
thankful.  For,  in  your  house  also,  there  will  be 
first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  and  after  that  the  full 
corn  in  the  ear.     You  may  not  live  to  see  it.     You 


44  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

will  most  likely  have  fallen  asleep  before  you  see  it. 
But  you  will  be  awakened  to  see  it.  And  you  will 
see  no  sweeter  sight  that  sweet  morning  than  the 
seed  you  sowed  on  earth  at  last  come  to  its  full  ear 
in  heaven.  Yes,  so  is  the  kingdom  of  God.  For 
when  the  fruit  is  brought  forth,  immediately 
He  putteth  in  the  sickle,  because  the  harvest  is 
come. 

And,  then,  what  a  heart-upholding  parable  this  is 
for  all  over-anxious  ministers.  It  should  be  called 
the  parable  for  all  impatient  parents  and  pastors ; 
pastors  especially.  Our  Lord  is  so  bent  upon  con- 
soling and  comforting  His  ministers  that  He  almost 
staggers  us  with  what  He  here  says  about  the  un- 
broken peace  of  mind  that  every  minister  of  His 
ought  to  possess.  At  all  hazards,  our  Lord  will, 
once  for  all,  pluck  up  all  over-anxiety,  and  all 
impatience  with  their  people,  out  of  the  hearts  of 
His  ministers.  So  much  so,  that  He  startles  us 
with  the  state  of  security,  and  almost  of  absolute 
obliviousness  in  sleep,  that  He  would  have  all  His 
ministers  to  enjoy.  What  a  courageous  comforter 
of  His  over-anxious  ministers  is  Jesus  Christ !  Cast 
in  the  seed,  He  says,  and  take  no  more  trouble 
about  it.  Sow  the  seed,  and  be  secure  of  the 
harvest.  Look  at  this  wise  sower  how  he  sleeps, 
says  our  Lord  to  us.  Imitate  him.  For  so  is  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.  It  is  as  if  our  Lord  came  into 
this  house  and  said  : — So  is  this  congregation.  It 
is  as  if  the  ministers  should  preach,  and  hold  their 
prayer-meetings,  and  teach  their  classes,  and  visit 


THE  MAN  WHO  CAST  SEED  45 

their  sick,  and  should  then  wait  in  confidence  till 
the  seed  should  spring  up,  they  know  not  how. 
And  so  it  is  as  a  matter  of  fact.  We  cast  the  seed 
of  God's  word  into  the  earth,  and  the  earth  takes 
it,  that  is  to  say,  God  takes  it,  and  it  springs  up, 
no  man  knoweth  how,  and  the  sowers  of  the  seed 
least  of  all.  Comfort  My  ministers,  saith  your 
God.  Speak  ye  comfortably  to  My  ministers,  and 
say  to  them  that  the  earth  bringeth  forth  her  fruit 
of  herself,  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  after  that 
the  full  corn  in  the  ear.  There  is  another  side,  of 
course,  to  supplement  all  that ;  but  one  side  is 
enough  for  one  sermon  of  His,  in  our  Lord's  manner 
of  preaching  the  kingdom. 

I  chanced  upon  this  in  my  reading  only  last  night, 
"  Nothing  great,"  says  Epictetus,  "  is  produced  sud- 
denly, not  even  a  grape  or  a  fig.  If  you  say  to  me 
that  you  want  a  grape  or  a  fig  now,  I  will  answer 
you  that  you  cannot  have  it ;  a  grape  takes  time. 
Let  it  flower  first,  then  it  will  put  forth  its  fruit, 
and  then  ripen.  And  would  you  have  the  fruit  of 
a  man's  life  and  character  all  in  a  moment  ?  Do 
not  expect  it."  And  again,  "  Fruit  grows  in  this 
way,  and  in  this  way  only.  If  the  seed  produces 
the  fruit  before  the  jointed  stem,  it  is  a  product  of 
the  garden  of  Adonis.  That  is  to  say,  the  thing  is 
for  show  only ;  it  has  no  root  in  itself.  You  have 
shot  up  too  soon,  my  man.  You  have  snatched  at 
fame  before  your  season.  You  think  you  are  some- 
thing, but  you  will  come  to  nothing.  Let  the  root 
grow,  then  the  first  joint,  then  the  second,  and  then 
the  third,  and  then  the  fruit  will  come  forth  of 


46  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 

itself."  So  Epictetus  taught  the  young  men  in  his 
Greek  lecture-room.  God  never  leaving  Himself 
without  a  witness. 

When  a  sinner  first  sets  out  on  his  sanctification, 
he  begins  already  to  sharpen  his  sickle,  and  to  bind 
and  stack  his  sheaves.  He  confidently  promises 
himself  and  other  people  both  sweet  and  strength- 
ening bread  to  eat  immediately  out  of  his  harvest. 
But  both  he,  and  all  who  have  to  do  with  him, 
soon  find  out  that  that  is  not  at  all  the  way  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.  Not  at  all.  In  the  kingdom 
of  heaven,  and  in  the  sanctification  of  its  subjects, 
it  is  first  the  blade  here  also,  then  the  ear,  after 
that  the  full  corn  in  the  ear.  And  sometimes, 
indeed,  it  threatens  as  if  it  were  to  be  all  blade  in 
this  field  and  no  ear  at  all.  Ay,  and  far  worse 
than  that :  the  very  blade,  with  all  its  promise  in 
it,  will  sometimes  seem  wholly  to  wither  and  abso- 
lutely to  die.  Why  is  it  that  I  am  so  slow  in 
growing  any  better  ?  Why  is  my  heart  as  wicked 
as  ever  it  was,  and  sometimes  much  more  so  ?  You 
pray,  in  a  way.  You  watch  unto  prayer,  now  and 
then.  You  study  all  the  great  authorities  on 
sanctification  that  you  can  hear  about,  or  can  lay 
your  hands  on.  But  as  soon  as  your  secretly 
besetting  sin  is  again  suddenly  let  loose  upon  you, 
that  moment  you  are  down  again  in  all  your  old 
agony  of  guilt  and  shame.  Ah,  my  brethren,  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  a  very  different  experience 
from  what  you  had  at  one  time  supposed  it  was. 
In   our   Lord's  experimental  words  about  it,  the 


THE  MAN  WHO  CAST  SEED  47 

sanctification  of  the  soul  is  first  in  the  blade,  then 
in  the  ear,  and  it  is  never,  in  this  world,  any  more : 
it  is  never  in  this  world  the  full  corn  in  the  ear. 
Whereas,  poor  soul,  you  thought  that  it  was  going 
to  be  the  full  ear  with  you  all  at  once. 

A  great  and  a  genuine  sanctification,  you  must 
know,  is  the  slowest  work  in  all  the  world.  There 
is  nothing  in  heaven  or  earth  so  slow.  The  thing  is 
sure,  indeed,  but  the  time  is  long.  It  would  need 
to  be  sure,  for  oh,  yes,  sirs,  it  is  long,  long.  And  it 
is  as  sore,  and  as  sickening,  as  it  is  long.  There  is 
a  true  description  of  it  in  our  great  Catechism.  It 
is  described  there  as  "  dying  daily.""  And  so  it  is. 
That  is  your  case,  is  it  not  ?  It  is  dying  by  inches, 
is  it  not  ?  It  is  having  the  two-edged  sword  driven 
daily  into  your  heart,  and  never  in  this  life  healed 
out  of  your  heart.  Death  is  a  process  of  pain, 
and  shame,  and  ignominy.  All  possible  pain,  and 
suffering,  and  all  manner  of  humiliation  to  mortal 
man,  is  collected  up  into  the  idea  of  death.  But 
our  everyday  death  is  not  true  death  at  all,  com- 
pared with  the  pain,  and  shame,  and  ignominy  of 
death  unto  sin.  And  it  all  seems  such  a  stagnation 
of  sin,  sometimes,  and  to  some  men.  As,  for 
instance,  to  the  man  who  expostulated  thus — "  O 
my  God,  the  more  I  do,  the  worse  I  am ! "  And 
to  the  man  who  first  sang  thus — 

And  they  that  fain  would  serve  Thee  best. 
Are  conscious  most  of  wrong  within. 

Till,  you  may  depend  upon  it,  our  Lord  had  His  eye 
and  His  heart  on  His  saints  who  are  undergoing  a 


48  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

great  spiritual  sanctification  when  He  spake  this 
many-sided  and  most  comforting  parable.  He 
spake  it  first  of  Himself,  and  of  His  own  growth 
in  strength  of  spirit,  and  in  wisdom,  as  well  as  in 
all  manner  of  Messianic  perfection.  And  then  He 
spake  it  of  parents  and  their  children,  and  then  of 
ministers  and  their  people.  But  above  all,  He 
spake  it  of  all  those  elect  souls  who  are  being  kept 
for  all  their  days  under  a  slow  but  sure  sanctifica- 
tion.  There  is  first  the  blade  of  true  holiness,  He 
said,  after  that  the  ear,  and  then  the  full  corn  in 
the  ear.  But  when  the  fruit  is  brought  forth, 
immediately  He  putteth  in  the  sickle,  because  the 
harvest  is  come. 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  TOOK  LEAVEN      49 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  TOOK  LEAVEN  AND 
HID  IT  IN  THREE  MEASURES  OF 
MEAL 

EING  the  first-born  son  in  His  mother's 
house,  it  would  fall  to  the  Holy  Child 
Jesus  to  perform  the  part  laid  down 
for  the  first-born  son  in  the  feast  of 
unleavened  bread.  And  thus  it  was 
that  after  Joseph  had  struck  the  lintel  and  the  two 
doorposts  with  the  blood  that  was  in  the  basin,  and 
after  the  whole  family  had  hurriedly  eaten  each  a 
portion  of  the  pascal  lamb,  and  a  piece  of  the  un- 
leavened bread,  at  that  appointed  moment  the 
eldest  son  of  the  house  came  forward  and  said, 
Father,  what  mean  you  by  this  service  ?  What 
mean  you  by  the  blood,  and  the  unleavened  bread, 
and  the  bitter  herbs  ?  And  Joseph  would  say,  It 
is  the  Lord's  passover,  because  He  passed  over  the 
houses  of  the  children  of  Israel  in  Egypt,  when  He 
smote  the  Egyptians  and  delivered  our  houses.  And 
Joseph,  and  Mary,  and  Jesus,  and  James,  and  Joses, 
and  Simon,  and  Judas,  and  their  sisters,  all  bowed 

D 


50  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

their  heads  and  sanj;  the  Hundred  and  Thirteenth 
and  the  Hundred  and  Fourteenth  Psalms.  And  once 
every  year  till  the  Holy  Child  came  to  the  full  stature 
of  the  Christ  of  God  :  every  returning  passover  He 
entered  deeper  and  deeper  into  this  great  ordinance, 
both  hearing  Joseph  and  asking  him  questions.  Till 
He  came  to  be  of  more  understanding  about  the 
feast  of  unleavened  bread  than  all  His  teachers  :  and 
understood  both  the  blood,  and  the  bread,  and  the 
bitter  herbs,  far  better  than  all  the  ancients. 

As  long  as  He  was  still  a  child.  He  spake  as  a 
child,  He  understood  as  a  child.  He  thought  as 
a  child.  And  the  great  haste  that  the  unleavened 
bread  signified,  was  enough  for  His  imagination 
and  His  mind  and  His  heart  as  long  as  He  was 
a  child.  But  then,  as  time  went  on.  He  would 
watch  His  mother  at  her  housewife-work,  and 
would  observe  how  her  leaven  spread  till  her 
three  measures  of  meal  was  all  leavened.  And  as 
He  meditated  on  the  process  going  on  under  His 
eyes,  He  would  again  see  in  the  leaven  and  in  the 
meal  another  parable  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 
And  He  would  lay  up  the  leaven  and  the  meal  in 
His  mind  and  in  His  imagination  and  in  His  heart 
for  some  of  His  future  sermons.  And  thus  it  was 
that  on  that  great  day  of  teaching  and  preaching 
when  He  sat  by  the  sea-side.  He  had  already  given 
out  parable  after  parable,  till  any  other  preacher 
but  Himself  would  have  been  exhausted ;  but  He 
still  went  on  as  fresh  and  as  interesting  and  as 
instructive  as  when  He  began  in  the  morning.  "I 
am  full  of  matter,"  said  Elihu.     "  The  spirit  within 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  TOOK  LEAVEN      51 

me  constraineth  me.  I  will  speak  that  I  may  be 
refreshed."  And  our  Lord  was  like  Elihu  in  that. 
For  though  He  had  already  that  day  illustrated 
and  applied  the  kingdom  of  God  by  a  long  and 
splendid  series  of  parables,  His  mind  was  still  as 
full  of  matter  as  ever.  And  the  more  He  tried  to 
put  the  kingdom  of  God  into  this  and  that  parable, 
the  more  He  saw  other  things  in  that  inexhaustible 
kingdom  for  which  no  parable  had  as  yet  been 
provided.  And  thus  it  was  that  at  this  point, 
and  as  if  to  teach  them  to  keep  their  eyes  always 
open  for  their  own  future  preaching,  their  Master 
suddenly  turned  to  His  disciples  and  asked  them 
whether  any  of  them  had  any  light  to  cast  upon 
the  subject  in  hand.  As  if  He  were  asking  some 
of  them  to  help  Him  out  with  His  great  subject, 
He  said  to  them — "Whereunto  shall  I  go  on  to 
liken  the  kingdom  of  God  ?  "  And  when  none  of 
them  had  a  word  more  to  say  concerning  the 
inwardness,  and  the  hiddenness,  and  the  all-assimi- 
lating power,  of  that  kingdom.  He  called  to  mind 
a  former  reflection  of  His  own  which  came  to  Him 
one  day  beside  His  mother's  kneading-trough.  He 
remembered  that  day  her  three  measures  of  meal, 
and  the  way  that  she  took  to  turn  that  raw  meal 
into  wholesome  and  palatable  bread.  "  And  so  is 
the  kingdom  of  God  in  some  respects,""  He  said. 
"  It  is  in  some  respects  like  leaven  which  a  woman 
took  and  hid  in  three  measures  of  meal  till  the 
whole  was  leavened."  And  here  are  we  to-night, 
and  in  this  church,  suddenly  transported  back  into 
Mary's  little  kitchen  in  Nazareth,  in  order  to  learn 


52  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

there  yet  another  of  her  Son's  parables  about  the 
kingdom  of  God. 

Beware  of  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees,  He  said  to 
His  disciples  on  one  occasion.  Now,  what  did  He 
mean  by  that  saying,  do  you  suppose  ?  What  would 
you  say  was  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  ?  I  do  not 
know  any  more  than  you  do,  but  I  will  tell  you 
what  I  think.  Leaven,  to  begin  with,  is  something 
that  is  hidden  and  inward,  and  then  it  works 
inwardly  and  secretly,  till  it  works  its  way  through 
the  whole  surrounding  measures  of  meal.  Now, 
what  was  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  ?  It  must 
have  been  something  inward  and  hidden,  to  begin 
with.  And  then  it  had  by  that  time  worked  its 
way  through  their  whole  heart  and  character  till 
they  were  the  Pharisees  who  were  bent  on  our 
Lord's  death  and  destruction.  Well,  a  little  lump 
of  leaven  that  a  woman  can  hold  in  her  hand  does 
not  look  to  be  much,  nor  to  have  much  power  in  it. 
But  wait  and  see.  And  a  little  self-esteem  in  a 
young  man's  heart  is  not  very  much  to  be  suspected 
or  denounced,  is  it.?  But  wait  and  see.  Let  that 
young  man  set  out  on  his  life  with  that  little  lump 
of  self-esteem  in  his  secret  heart,  and,  as  sure  as  he 
lives,  this  will  be  his  experience,  and  the  experience 
of  all  who  have  to  do  with  him.  So  many  and  so 
unavoidable  are  the  oppositions,  and  the  contra- 
dictions, and  the  collisions  of  life,  that  if  his  self- 
esteem  is  not  by  means  of  all  these  things,  and  by 
means  of  the  grace  of  God  co-operating  with  all 
these  things,  chastened  and  subdued  and  cast 
out,  then  all  these  collisions,  and  corrections,  and 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  TOOK  LEAVEN      53 

contradictions,  will  only  the  more  increase  and 
exasperate  his  self-esteem,  till  he  will  end  his  days 
as  full  of  self-righteousness,  and  pride,  and  hardness 
of  heart,  as  very  Lucifer  himself.  On  the  other 
hand,  humility,  that  is  to  say  disesteem  of  a  man's 
self,  is  so  much  good  leaven  hidden  in  a  good  man's 
heart.  These  are  the  words  of  well-known  master  in 
Israel, — "  Humility  does  not  consist  in  having  a 
worse  opinion  of  ourselves  than  we  deserve,  or  in 
abasing  ourselves  lower  than  we  really  are.  But  as 
all  virtue  is  founded  in  truth,  so  humility  is  founded 
in  a  true  and  just  sense  of  our  weakness,  misery,  and 
sin.  So  much  so,  that  he  who  rightly  feels  and 
lives  in  this  sense  of  his  condition  lives  in  humility." 
That  is  to  say,  he  who  at  all  rightly  knows  himself 
is  done  for  ever  with  all  self-esteem.  There  is  not 
left  in  all  his  inward  parts  so  much  as  a  single 
ounce  of  that  leaven  of  the  Pharisees.  But  that 
sect  in  Israel  were  so  set  against  all  introspection, 
as  they  called  it:  their  doctors  of  the  law  so 
denounced  that  sanctifying  habit  of  mind  and 
heart,  that  their  scholars  ended  with  crucifying 
the  Lord  of  Glory.  To  such  a  lump  of  villainy  and 
wickedness  will  a  little  leaven  of  self-esteem  grow 
under  the  fit  conditions,  and  in  the  fit  heart,  and 
left  fitly  alone.  Now  our  Lord  saw,  only  far  too 
well,  that  evil  leaven  already  at  work  in  His  twelve 
disciples.  I  do  not  take  it  upon  me  to  say  how  far 
it  is  at  work  in  any  of  you.  I  will  not  insist  that 
your  self-esteem  is  eating  through  your  whole  heart 
and  is  destroying  your  whole  life  and  character.  I 
will  not  fall  out  with  you  about  that.     I  will  not 


54  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

insist  on  what  you  call  introspection,  but  I  for  one 
both  feel  and  confess  the  truth  of  His  words  when 
my  Lord  says  to  me — Preacher,  Beware  !  lest  having 
discoursed  so  beautifully  on  humility  to  others,  you 
yourself,  through  your  self-esteem,  should  be  a 
castaway  from  the  kingdom  of  God.  Till  it  has 
to  be  my  prayer,  with  the  candle  of  the  Lord  in 
my  hand  continually — Search  me,  O  God,  and 
know  my  heart :  try  me,  and  know  my  thoughts : 
and  see  if  there  be  any  of  this  wicked  way  in  me, 
and  lead  me  in  the  way  everlasting ! 

The  Apostle  Paul  also  has  this  on  this  same 
parable :  "  Purge  out  therefore  the  old  leaven. 
Know  ye  not  that  a  little  leaven  leaveneth  the 
whole  lump .?  Therefore  let  us  keep  the  feast,  not 
with  old  leaven,  neither  with  the  leaven  of  malice 
and  wickedness,  but  with  the  unleavened  bread  of 
sincerity  and  truth."  Now,  what  is  malice  and 
wickedness  ?  We  have  seen  what  self-esteem  is, 
and  how  it  works  till  it  leavens  the  whole  lump. 
But  what  is  the  leaven  of  malice.?  You  may  be 
old  enough  to  know  without  being  told.  You  may 
have  enough  of  it  in  yourself,  and  you  may  have 
suffered  enough  from  it  in  others ;  but  there  are 
new  beginners  in  self-esteem,  and  in  malice,  and 
the  word  must  be  rightly  divided  to  meet  their 
case  as  well  as  yours.  Now,  you  who  are  new 
beginners  in  morals  and  in  religion — what  think 
you  is  malice  ?  For  you  cannot  purge  it  out,  nor 
keep  it  purged  out,  if  you  do  not  know  it  when 
you  see  it.  Well,  malice  also  is  like  leaven  in 
this.      Its  first  beginning  is  so  small  as  not  to  be 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  TOOK  LEAVEN       55 

worth  speaking  about  in  a  dignified  pulpit.  You 
do  not  like  some  one.  Nothing  is  so  common, 
surely,  as  that.  Already,  at  school,  at  college, 
in  the  office,  in  the  workshop,  in  the  house,  you 
do  not  like  some  one.  Well,  that  is  your  first 
half-ounce  of  the  leaven  of  malice.  And  your 
feelings  toward  that  man,  and  your  thoughts 
about  him,  and  your  words  about  him,  and  your 
actions  toward  him,  are  like  the  three  measures 
of  meal  with  the  little  leaven  at  its  heart.  You 
just  dislike  that  man — that  is  all  as  yet.  But  then 
full-grown  men  are  so  leavened  with  that  same  dis- 
like that  they  actually  come  to  hate  one  another. 
And — "  hates  any  man  the  thing  he  would  not  kill  ?'''' 
You  see  then  where  you  are.  You  see  on  what  road 
you  are  travelling.  You  are  travelling  on  the  road 
of  the  Pharisees.  You  are  travelling  on  the  road 
to  hell.  And  there  is  no  surer,  no  shorter,  and  no 
more  inevitable,  road  to  hell  than  hatred,  which  is 
j  ust  dislike,  and  umbrage,  and  a  secret  grudge,  come 
to  their  three  measures  of  meal.  Malice  is  bad 
blood,  as  we  say.  It  is  ill-will.  It  is  resentment. 
It  is  revenge.  Till  it  is  in  God's  sight  very  murder 
itself;  hidden,  as  yet,  it  may  be  from  your  intro- 
spection in  its  three  measures  of  surrounding  and 
smothering-up  meal.  And  it  is  while  this  red- 
handed  murder  is  still  at  its  early  stages  of  dislike, 
and  antipathy,  and  animosity,  that  Paul  beseeches 
you  to  purge  it  out.  But  in  order  to  purge  it  out, 
you  must  take  a  candle  like  this  to  the  work.  A 
clear  candle  like  this.  You  have  a  neighbour.  He 
may  at  one  time  have  been  a  friend.     He  may  never 


56  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

suspect  but  that  he  is  a  friend  still.  He  may  be 
befriending  you  all  the  time.  But  at  heart  you 
are  not  his  friend  any  more.  Something  has  hap- 
pened to  you.  Something  that  you  must  search 
out  and  admit  abont  yourself.  However  humbling, 
however  self-condemning,  however  self-hating,  it 
may  turn  out  to  be,  you  cannot  be  a  good  and  a 
true  man  any  more  till  you  have  found  yourself 
out.  Your  friend  forgot  you  on  some  occasion. 
Or  he  preferred  some  one  else  to  you.  Or  he  took 
his  own  judgment  and  conscience  for  his  guide  in 
some  matter  in  which  you  demanded  to  dictate  to 
him.  Or  he  got  some  promotion,  or  praise,  or 
reward,  that  you  had  not  humility  and  love  enougli 
to  stomach.  Track  out  your  heart,  sir !  Heaven 
and  hell  hang  on  your  tracking  out  your  heart  in 
that  matter.  No.  Hell  does  not  hang  upon  it,  for 
hell  has  possession  of  your  heart  already.  That 
wicked  heat  in  your  heart  at  the  mention  of  his 
name,  that  is  hell.  That  blackness  which  we  all 
see  in  your  very  look,  that  is  the  smoke  of  your 
torment  already  begun.  Purge  it  out,  implores 
Paul.  Ah !  it  is  easy  saying  purge  it  out.  Did 
Paul  manage  to  purge  it  out  himself,  after  all  his 
most  earnest  preaching  about  it  ?  No :  he  did  not. 
No  more  than  you  and  I,  And  it  was  when  he  had 
lighted  all  the  candles  he  could  lay  his  hands  on ; 
and  when  with  them  all  he  could  not  get  down  to 
all  the  malice  that  was  still  hiding  in  his  heart,  it 
was  then  that  his  Master  had  mercy  on  His  miserable 
servant,  and  said  to  him.  My  grace  is  sufficient  for 
thee :  for  My  strength  is  made  perfect  in  weakness. 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  TOOK  LEAVEN      57 

And  though  Pharisaic  self-esteem  and  diabolical 
malice  are  all  the  instances  to  which  our  Lord's 
parable  is  applied  first  by  Himself  and  then  by 
His  best  Apostle,  yet  the  parable  is  equally  true 
of  all  the  other  leavenings  of  the  devil  that  are 
insinuated  into  our  souls.  A  little  of  the  leaven 
of  pride — think  it  out,  with  home-coming  illustra- 
tions, for  yourself.  A  little  of  the  leaven  of  anger 
— think  it  out,  with  home-coming  illustrations,  for 
yourself.  A  little  of  the  leaven  of  suspicion,  and 
of  jealousy,  and  of  envy — with  illustrations  and 
instances  taken  from  yourself.  A  little  of  the 
leaven  of  sensuality — "the  inconceivable  evil  of 
sensuality  " — as  Newman  calls  it — with  a  whole 
portfolio  of  illustrations  taken  from  yourself.  A 
foul  thought,  a  foul  hint,  a  foul  innuendo,  a  foul 
word,  a  foul  image  ;  a  foul-mouthed  boy  in  the 
playground ;  a  foul-mouthed  man  in  the  workshop, 
in  the  office,  in  the  bothy ;  a  foul-mouthed  woman 
in  the  workroom,  in  the  kitchen,  in  the  field;  a 
foul  book,  a  foul  picture,  a  foul  photograph  in 
a  shop-window  in  passing, — think  it  out,  with  a 
thousand  illustrations  taken  from  your  own  experi- 
ence, and  you  will  be  v.iser  in  this  universal  leaven 
of  sensuality  than  all  your  teachers.  You  will  yet 
be  a  master  in  Israel  yourself  in  such  sickening,  but 
at  the  same  time  necessary,  self-knowledge. 

It  is  surely  very  striking  to  discover  that  while 
our  Lord  says  so  plainly  that  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  like  leaven,  yet  both  He,  and  His  best  Apostle, 
descend  into  the  kingdom  of  Satan  for  all  their 
best  instances,  and  all  their  most  pungent  appli- 


58  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

cations  of  the  leaven.  They  would  seem  in  this 
to  leave  it  to  ourselves  to  apply  and  to  verify 
the  parable  in  its  application  to  the  things  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.  Whereunto  shall  I  liken  it  ? 
He  said  to  His  disciples.  As  much  as  to  say — find 
out  more  and  better  instances,  and  illustrations,  and 
verifications,  for  yourselves.  And  His  example,  and 
PauFs  example,  would  seem  to  say  to  all  preachers — 
give  your  people  one  or  two  illustrations  taken  from 
things  they  are  only  too  well  acquainted  with  already, 
and  then  leave  them  to  prosecute  the  parable  further 
for  themselves.  Would,  said  Moses,  that  all  the 
Lord's  people  were  prophets !  And  I  will  leave  this 
parable  where  our  Lord  and  His  Apostle  left  it, 
only  saying  over  it  and  over  you.  Would  that  all 
the  Lord's  people  were  expositors  and  preachers,  and 
that  out  of  their  own  observation  and  experience  ! 


THE  MAN  WHO  FOUND  TREASURE      59 


VI 

THE  MAN  WHO  FOUND  TREASURE  HID 
IN  A  FIELD 

>T  was  good  stories  like  this  in  His 
sermons  that  made  the  common  people 
begin  to  hear  Him  so  gladly.  There 
was  not  a  carpenter"'s  shop,  nor  a 
village  market-place,  in  all  Galilee 
where  such  stories  of  treasure  -  trove  were  not 
continually  told.  Stories  of  the  same  kind  are 
not  altogether  unknown  in  our  own  land.  But  in 
the  East,  and  to  this  day,  such  great  finds  as  this 
man  made  are  not  at  all  uncommon.  In  times  of 
commotion  timid  men  will  hide  their  treasures 
sometimes  in  the  walls  or  under  the  floors  of  their 
houses,  and  sometimes  they  will  bury  them  in  their 
gardens  and  in  their  fields.  And  it  will  some- 
times happen  that  the  owner  will  die  and  will 
leave  his  secret  treasure  wholly  undisclosed.  And 
then  some  lucky  man  will  come  on  that  buried 
treasure  some  day  in  the  most  unexpected  and 
accidental  way ;  like  this  lucky  man.  He  was 
ploughing  one  day  in  his  master's  field  ;  or,  was 


60  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

he  digging  deep  with  his  spade  and  his  mattock  ? 
When,  suddenly,  he  reeled  with  joy  at  the  sight 
of  the  glittering  hoard  that  his  ploughshare  had 
laid  bare.  In  one  moment  his  resolve  was  made. 
Carefully  covering  up  the  shining  spot,  before  the 
sun  had  time  to  set,  he  had  already  sold  all  that 
he  jiossessed,  and  had  made  such  an  offer  for  the 
field  that  it  was  handed  over  to  him,  with  all  that 
it  contained,  before  he  slept.  All  the  old  books 
of  the  ancient  world  are  full  of  such  intoxicating 
stories  as  this.  Perhaps  the  most  famous  of  all 
those  stories  is  that  which  Tacitus  tells  us  about 
Nero.  How  a  bold  imposter  hoaxed  the  emperor 
about  an  immense  mine,  full  of  all  kinds  of  precious 
treasure,  that  was  to  be  found  in  a  distant  part 
of  his  dominions.  And  Nero  believed  the  wild 
tale  till  he  became  the  laughing-stock  of  the  whole 
world.  But  this  was  no  hoax,  this  true  find  in 
that  field  of  Galilee.  Our  Lord  would  seem  to 
have  known  the  fortunate  ploughman,  and  to  have 
had  his  happy  story  from  his  own  delighted  lips. 
But  the  barest  outline  of  the  rich  story  is  all  that 
Matthew's  pen  has  here  preserved  to  us.  We 
would  far  rather  have  had  the  whole  sermon  that 
our  Lord  preached  from  that  fortunate  man's  find 
than  we  would  have  had  all  his  furrow  full  of  gold 
and  silver.  For  the  word  of  our  Lord's  mouth  is 
becoming  more  and  better  to  us  than  thousands 
of  gold  and  silver.  But  it  has  seemed  good  to  the 
Holy  Ghost  to  have  this  man's  story  told  to  us 
in  the  shortest  possible  way,  and  then  to  leave  us 
to  find  out  all  its  heavenly  likenesses  for  ourselves. 


THE  MAN  WHO  FOUND  TREASURE     6l 

Well,  the  first  and  foundation  likeness  between 
this  parable  and  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  surely 
this.  Just  as  our  Lord  is  the  Sower  in  another 
parable,  and  just  as  He  is  the  Planter  of  the 
mustard  seed  in  another,  and  the  Good  Shepherd 
in  another,  and  the  Good  Samaritan  in  another,  so 
He  is  the  happy  ploughing  Man  in  this  parable. 
And  as  the  field  was  the  world  in  a  former  parable, 
so  is  it  here.  And  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  says 
our  Lord,  is  like  treasure  hid  in  the  field  of  this 
world.  And  the  first  man  who  found  the  treasure 
that  lay  hid  in  the  field  of  this  world  was  the  Son 
of  man.  All  the  world  knows  that  though  He 
was  rich,  yet  for  our  sakes  He  became  poor.  All 
the  world  knows  how  that  being  in  the  form  of 
God,  He  humbled  Himself,  and  made  Himself  of 
no  reputation,  and  became  obedient  unto  death, 
even  the  death  of  the  cross.  All  of  which,  taken 
together,  was  the  price  He  paid  for  this  field,  and 
for  the  treasure  hid  in  this  field.  Our  Lord  bought 
this  world,  so  to  say,  for  the  sake  of  the  elect  souls 
that  lay  hidden  in  it,  till  He  was  able  to  say, — "  As 
thou,  Father,  hast  given  thy  Son  power  over  all 
flesh,  that  He  should  give  eternal  life  to  as  many 
as  thou  hast  given  Him." 

Incomparable  Thomas  Goodwin, — incomparable 
to  me,  at  any  rate, — says  that  Paul  will  be  the 
second  man  in  heaven,  the  Man  Christ  Jesus  being 
the  first  man.  And  every  one  here  will  already 
have  thought  of  Paul  as  soon  as  this  fine  little 
parable  was  read  out  to  him.  For,  if  ever  any  man 
could  be  said  to  have  had  every  letter  of  this  fine 


62  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

little  parable  fulfilled  both  in  him  and  by  him,  that 
man  was  Paul.  If  ever  any  man,  after  the  Man 
Christ  Jesus,  sold  all  that  he  had  that  he  might 
buy  the  field,  that  man  was  the  Apostle.  Which 
field,  in  his  case,  was  nothing  less  than  Jesus  Christ 
Himself.  Jesus  Clirist  Himself,  with  His  justifying 
righteousness,  lield  in  Himself  like  hid  treasure. 
This  so  fortunate  ploughman  in  our  Lord''s  sermon 
sold  his  little  cottage  in  Capernaum,  with  its  little 
garden  full  of  fruits  and  flowers,  and  with  all  its 
vines  and  fig  trees,  under  which  he  was  used  to  sit 
after  his  hard  day's  work  was  done.  He  determined 
to  sell  all  those  dear  possessions  and  delights  of  his 
for  the  sake  of  the  treasure  his  eyes  had  once  got 
sight  of  in  that  enriching  and  entrancing  field. 
And  Paul,  in  like  manner,  was  ploughing  at  his 
daily  task,  when,  lo,  his  horse's  foot  suddenly  sank 
out  of  sight  into  such  a  wealth  of  unsearchable 
riches,  that  he  straightway  counted  all  things  but 
loss  in  order  to  buy  that  field.  Yes,  truly.  If 
Jesus  Christ  was  the  first  ploughing  man  of  this 
parable,  then,  surely,  Paul  was  the  second. 

But  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  such  a  rich  and 
various  kingdom  that  there  are  many  other  fields 
with  hid  treasure  in  them,  lying  all  around  the 
central  field.  And  in  some  of  those  adjoining 
fields  there  is  no  little  treasure  still  lying  hid  and 
waiting  for  the  first  fortunate  ploughman  to  lay 
it  open  and  to  make  it  his  own.  You  are  not 
ministers.  But  you  cannot  fail  to  see  what  a  rich 
field,  and  full  of  what  treasure,  every  evangelical 
pulpit  is,  with  its  pastorate  of  the  same  character 


THE  MAN  WHO  FOUND  TREASURE     63 

spreading  out  all  around  it.  Only,  here  again,  that 
minister  who  would  possess  himself  of  the  hid 
treasure  of  his  pulpit  and  his  pastorate  must  sell 
all  he  has  in  order  to  buy  up  those  two  gold-filled 
fields.  "  At  his  first  coming  to  his  little  village, 
Ouranius  felt  it  as  disagreeable  to  him  as  a  prison, 
and  every  day  seemed  too  tedious  to  be  endured  in 
so  retired  a  place.  He  thought  his  parish  was  too 
full  of  poor  and  mean  people  that  were  none  of 
them  fit  for  the  conversation  of  a  gentleman.  This 
put  him  upon  a  close  application  to  his  studies. 
He  consequently  kept  much  at  home,  writ  notes 
upon  Homer  and  Plautus,  and  sometimes  thought 
it  hard  to  be  called  to  pray  by  any  poor  body's 
bedside  when  he  was  just  in  the  midst  of  one  of 
Homer"'s  battles."  "  Mr.  Kinchin,"  says  George 
Whitefield,  "  was  minister  of  Dumnier  in  Hamp- 
shire, and  being  likely  to  be  chosen  Dean  of  Corpus 
Christi  College,  he  desired  me  to  take  his  place 
and  officiate  for  him  till  that  affair  should  be 
decided.  By  the  advice  of  friends  I  went,  and  he 
came  to  supply  my  place  in  Oxford.  His  parish 
consisting  chiefly  of  poor  and  illiterate  people,  my 
proud  heart  at  first  could  not  well  brook  it.  I 
would  have  given  all  the  world  to  be  back  in  my 
beloved  Oxford.  But  upon  giving  up  myself  to 
prayer,  and  reading  Mr.  Law's  excellent  Character 
of  Ouranius,  my  mind  became  reconciled  to  such 
conversation  as  the  place  afforded  me.  I  prosecuted 
Mr.  Kinchin's  plan,  and  generally  divided  the  day 
into  three  parts ;  eight  hours  for  study  and  medi- 
tation, eight  hours  for  sleep  and  meals,  and  eight 


64  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

hours  for  reading  prayers,  catechising  and  visiting 
the  parish.  The  profit  I  reaped  by  these  exercises 
was  unspeakable.  I  soon  began  to  be  as  much 
delighted  with  their  artless  conversation  as  I  had 
previously  been  with  my  Oxford  friends,  and 
I  frequently  learned  as  much  by  an  afternoon's 
visit  as  in  a  week's  study.  I  remained  at  Dummer 
till  a  letter  came  from  Mr.  John  Wesley  in  which 
were  these  words :  '  Do  you  ask  what  you  shall 
have  in  Georgia  ?  Food  to  eat,  and  raiment  to 
put  on,  and  a  house  to  lay  your  head  in,  such  as 
your  Lord  had  not.  And  a  crown  of  glory  that 
fadeth  not  away.'  Upon  reading  this,  my  heart 
leaped  within  me,  and  as  it  were  echoed  to  the 
call." 

As  I  was  saying,  a  minister  who  would  dig  up 
the  hidden  treasure  out  of  his  pulpit  and  pastoral 
fields  must  sell  all  his  time  and  all  his  tastes  ;  all 
his  thoughts  by  day  and  all  his  dreams  by  night. 
He  must  spend  and  be  spent.  He  must  be  the 
servant  of  all  men.  He  must  become  all  things  to 
all  men.  He  must  not  strive.  He  must  have  no 
mind  of  his  own,  but  the  mind  of  Christ  only. 
Both  his  books,  and  his  table,  and  his  bed,  must 
all  go  to  the  hammer.  But  then,  by  that  time,  he 
will  begin  to  have  a  people  about  him  of  whom  he 
will  be  able  to  say — "What  is  my  hope,  or  joy,  or 
crown  of  rejoicing  ?  Are  not  even  ye  in  the  presence 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  at  His  coming.?"  And 
then  that  all-surrendered  minister  will  be  summoned 
forward  at  the  coming  of  his  Lord,  not  any  more 
to  shame  and  everlasting  contempt,  but  his  Lord 


THE  MAN  WHO  FOUND  TREASURE       65 

will  say  to  him  on  tliat  day  when  He  makes  up 
His  jewels — '  That  jewel  is  yours,'  his  Lord  will  say : 
'  for  that  soul  and  that  would  have  been  lost  to 
Me,  but  for  your  self-denying  ministry/  And  then, 
on  that  day,  the  poorest  parish  in  all  Scotland,  and 
the  meanest  mission-field  in  all  the  world,  will  be 
seen  to  yield  up  treasures  that  will  dazzle  the  eyes 
of  men  and  angels  to  see  them.  Then  they  that 
be  wise  in  time  shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of  the 
firmament ;  and  they  that  turn  many  to  righteous- 
ness as  the  stars  for  ever  and  ever. 

And  on  the  other  hand,  such  a  minister's  ministry 
is  the  all-enriching  field  of  his  understanding  and 
discerning  people.  A  scholarly,  studious,  able, 
evangelical,  experimental,  preacher  every  Sabbath 
day  ;  and  then  all  the  week  an  assiduous,  unwearied, 
ever-mindful,  all-loving,  pastor, — what  a  field,  and 
full  of  what  treasure  to  his  people,  is  such  a  minister 
and  such  a  ministry  !  What  treasures  of  grace  and 
truth  lie  hid  there  for  the  proper  people.  Ay, 
and  lie  hid,  sometimes,  even  from  his  very  best 
people.  For  how  can  any  one  know,  or  even  guess 
at,  what  God  has  done  so  as  to  enrich  them  and 
their  children  in  His  fitting  up  and  furnishing  of 
their  minister's  whole  life  and  experience  ?  Ten 
thousand  personal  and  ministerial  providences  and 
experiences  have  all  befallen  him  for  their  sake. 
As  also  his  ever  sleepless  labours  for  their  under- 
standing and  edification.  The  half  of  which  could 
not  be  told,  and  would  neither  be  believed  nor 
understood,  even  if  it  were  to  be  told.  Only,  some- 
times  you  will   hear  of  one  man  in  a  thousand ; 

s 


66  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

sometimes  you  will  meet  with  one  rare  and  remark- 
able man  who  has  sold  not  a  little,  in  order  to 
become  possessed  of  that  minister  and  his  ministry. 
The  multitude  in  every  congregation  stumble  about 
lucklessly  and  unprofitably  even  among  the  richest 
of  fields.  But,  here  and  there,  and  now  and  then, 
another  manner  of  man  will  sometimes  be  met  with. 
One  happy  man  in  a  thousand  runs  his  ploughshare 
down  into  the  treasure-trove  of  that  pulpit,  and 
then  takes  action  accordingly.  An  old  office-bearer 
of  this  very  congregation  told  me  long  ago,  how 
he  had  lately  summoned  a  conference  of  his  whole 
household  in  order  to  make  a  great  family  choice 
and  decision.  He  put  it  to  his  wife,  and  to  his 
sons,  and  to  his  daughters,  whether  he  would  build 
a  house  for  them  away  out  of  Edinburgh,  with  a 
park  and  a  garden  and  stables,  and  all  that.  Or 
whether  he  would  buy  a  house  in  a  west-end 
Crescent  so  as  to  be  still  near  this  church,  and  so 
as  to  let  him  remain  in  the  session,  and  so  as  to 
let  his  family  continue  to  sit  under  Dr.  Candlish's 
ministry.  And  the  eyes  of  that  happy  ploughman 
of  Capernaum  did  not  glisten  with  tears  of  greater 
joy  than  did  that  old  elder''s  eyes  when  he  told  me 
that  he  had  determined  on  a  house  within  reach  of 
the  pulpit  to  which  he  owed  his  own  soul,  and  his 
children's  souls.  And  his  wife  had  been  in  Dr. 
Candlish's  ladies'  class.  Things  like  that  do  not 
happen  every  day.  But  that  is,  largely,  because 
there  are  not  pulpits  every  day  like  Dr.  Candlish's 
pulpit  of  those  days. 

And,  then,  all    the    more    because   you   are   not 


THE  MAN  WHO  FOUND  TREASURE      67 

ministers,  you  have  the  gold-filled  field  of  your 
Bible  always  before  you.  If  you  had  been  ministers 
you  would  have  had  a  constant  temptation  in 
connection  with  your  Bible  that,  as  it  is,  you  have 
clean  escaped.  If  you  had  been  preachers  you 
would  have  been  tempted  to  read  your  Bible  almost 
solely  with  an  eye  to  good  texts.  And,  better  not 
read  your  Bible  at  all,  than  just  to  make  sermons 
out  of  it.  What  a  promise  !  you  say  as  you  read 
alone,  and  you  read  no  more  that  night.  What 
a  consolation !  you  say.  What  a  psalm  !  and  you 
say  and  sing  it  all  that  week  after,  and  at  all 
times  and  in  all  places.  What  a  name  for  you  is 
the  Name  of  your  God  !  you  say.  And,  like  Moses 
on  the  Mount,  you  make  haste  and  bow  your  head 
and  worship,  and  say, — Pardon  our  iniquity  and  our 
sin,  and  take  us  for  thine  inheritance.  Moses  did 
not  say — What  a  text  for  next  Sabbath  !  And  you 
have  no  temptation  to  say  that  either.  There  is 
nothing  of  that  kind  to  come  in  between  you  and 
your  immediate  application  of  the  rich  grace  of 
God's  word  to  the  needs  of  your  own  soul.  Yes. 
What  a  field  of  fields  to  the  right  reader  is  the 
word  of  God  !  What  a  grace-laden  field  is  the 
Psalms.  And  again,  the  Gospels.  And  again,  the 
Epistles.  What  solid  gold  lies  hidden  in  all  these 
several  spots  of  this  rich  field.  Happy  ploughmen  ! 
O,  my  brethren,  search  deep  in  the  Scriptures. 
For  they  are  they  which  testify  to  you  both  of 
yourselves  and  of  your  Saviour. 

And  then  the  field  of  prayer.     O,  the  milk  and 
honey  of  which  every  rig  and  furrow  of  that  field 


68  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

is  full !  He  maketh  me  to  lie  down  in  the  green 
pastures  of  it.  He  leadeth  me  beside  the  still 
waters  of  it.  And  then,  the  treasure  hid  in  it. 
And  then,  the  enterprise  of  prayer,  the  exploration 
of  it,  the  ventures  in  it,  the  sure  successes  of  it. 
Surely  this  is  the  field  in  which  there  is  a  vein  for 
the  silver,  and  a  place  for  the  fine  gold.  Iron  is 
here  taken  out  of  the  earth,  and  brass  is  molten 
out  of  the  stone.  The  very  stones  of  it  are  the 
place  of  sapphires,  and  it  hath  its  dust  of  gold. 
It  cannot  be  gotten  for  gold,  neither  shall  silver  be 
weighed  for  the  price  of  it.  This  is  a  field  that 
cannot  be  valued  with  the  gold  of  Ophir,  with  the 
precious  onyx  or  the  sapphire.  The  gold  and  the 
crystal  cannot  equal  it;  and  the  exchange  of  it 
cannot  be  for  jewels  of  fine  gold.  No  mention 
shall  be  made  of  coral  or  of  pearls ;  for  the  price 
of  prayer  is  above  rubies.  The  topaz  of  Ethiopia 
shall  not  equal  it.  Neither  shall  it  be  valued  with 
pure  gold.  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you.  What- 
soever ye  shall  ask  the  Father  in  my  name,  He 
will  give  it  you.  Hitherto  ye  have  asked  nothing 
in  my  name.  Ask,  and  ye  shall  receive,  that  your 
joy  may  be  full. 


THE  MERCHANT  MAN  69 


VII 

THE  MERCHANT  MAN  WHO  SOLD  ALL 
THAT  HE  HAD  AND  BOUGHT  THE 
PEARL  OF  GREAT  PRICE 

HIS  is  one  of  those  travelling  jewellers 
of  the  East  who  compass  sea  and  land 
in  their  search  for  goodly  pearls.  He 
is  never  at  home.  He  is  always  on  the 
look-out  for  more  and  more  precious 
pearls.  Till  one  day  his  long  search  is  signally 
rewarded.  He  is  engaged  in  exploring  a  certain 
market  of  precious  stones,  when  suddenly  his  eye 
falls  on  a  pearl  the  like  of  which  he  had  never  sup- 
posed to  exist.  Its  great  size,  its  perfect  form,  its 
exquisite  beauty,  its  dazzling  light — he  had  never 
expected  to  see  such  a  gem.  Ascertaining  from  its 
owner  the  great  price  of  the  pearl,  the  merchant  man 
forthwith  sells  all  that  he  possesses,  and  buys  up  on 
the  spot  that  pearl  of  great  price.  We  get  a  well- 
known  word  from  the  honourable  name  that  is  here 
given  to  this  enterprising  merchant  man.  Our 
Lord  calls  him  an  emporium  man.  And  so  he  is. 
For  he  has  spent  his  whole  life  in  the  search  for  the 


70  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 

very  best  pearls,  till  his  emporium  is  famous  for  the 
size,  and  the  beauty,  and  the  value,  of  its  pearls. 
And  his  famous  emporium  is  now  more  famous 
than  ever  because  of  this  splendid  purchase  he  has 
made  on  his  last  enterprising  journey. 

Now,  the  world  of  books,  to  begin  with,  is  not 
unlike  a  merchant  man  seeking  goodly  pearls.  For 
every  really  good  book  that  a  really  good  judge  of 
books  discovers  becomes  a  pearl  of  great  price  to 
him.  Till  as  his  reading  life  goes  on,  he  as  good 
as  sells  all  his  former  books  for  the  sake  of  this  and 
that  pearl  of  books  which  he  has  discovered  in  the 
course  of  his  reading.  A  new  beginner  in  books 
reads  everything  he  comes  across.  All  printed 
matter  interests  him,  and  a  poor  and  passing  book 
will  for  a  time  satisfy  him,  and  even  entrance  him. 
But  as  time  goes  on,  and  as  the  real  use  of  a  good 
book,  and  the  real  rarity  of  a  good  book,  become 
revealed  to  him,  the  true  reader  will  be  found 
giving  up  all  his  reading  time,  and  all  his  reading 
outlay,  to  the  really  great  and  life-long  books  of 
the  world,  and  to  them  alone.  As,  for  instance, 
Dr.  Chalmers. 

During  my  Christmas  holiday  I  have  been  renew- 
ing my  acquaintance  with  that  true  pearl  of  a  book. 
Dr.  Hanna's  Memoirs  of  Dr.  Chalmers.  And  among 
a  multitude  of  lessons  I  learned  and  laid  up  for 
myself  and  for  my  classes  out  of  that  treasure-house, 
Dr.  Chalmers's  ever-growing  appreciation  of  the 
very  best  books  was  one  of  the  best  lessons  I  again 
learned.  "  Butler  made  me  a  Christian,"  said 
Chalmers,  somewhat  hyperbolically,  to  one  of  his 


THE  MERCHANT  MAN  71 

early  friends.  "  Pascars,"  he  wrote  to  another 
friend,  "is  more  than  all  Greek  and  Roman  fame." 
Before  his  eyes  were  opened,  and  before  his  taste 
was  refined  to  distinguish  pearl  from  paste,  Chalmers 
actually  denounced  John  Newton,  and  Richard 
Baxter,  and  Philip  Doddridge,  from  the  pulpit, 
and  as  good  as  forbade  his  people  to  read  them. 
But  the  day  was  fast  coming  when  this  great 
merchant  man  of  ours  was  to  sell  all  that  he  had 
in  order  to  buy  the  very  pearls  he  had  so  scouted 
in  the  days  of  his  disgraceful  and  guilty  ignorance. 
For  as  I  read  on  I  came  on  such  entries  in  his 
private  journal  as  these:  "Began  Richard  Baxter, 
which  I  mean  to  make  my  devotional  reading  in  the 
evenings."  "  Sept.  13. — I  have  begun  Baxter's  Call 
to  the  Unconverted^  and  intend  it  for  circulation." 
And  writing  the  same  year  to  a  younger  brother  of 
his,  he  says,  "  I  look  upon  Baxter  and  Doddridge  as 
two  most  impressive  writers,  and  from  whom  you 
are  likely  to  carry  away  the  impression  that  a  pre- 
paration for  eternity  should  be  the  main  business 
and  anxiety  of  time."  "Nov.  11. — Finished  this 
day  the  perusal  of  Foster*'s  Essays,  which  I  have 
read  with  great  relish  and  excitement.  His  pro- 
foundly evangelical  views  are  most  congenial  to  me. 

0  my  God,  give  me  of  the  fulness  of  Christ !     May 

1  never  lose  sight  of  Christ,  that  through  Him  I 
may  pass  from  death  unto  life."  "  March  14. — I  am 
much  impressed  with  the  reality  and  business-like 
style  of  Doddridge's  intercourse  with  God.  O 
Heavenly  Father,  convert  my  religion  from  a  name 
to  a  principle ! "     You  may  remember  that  there  is 


72  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

an  old  evangelical  classic  entitled  The  Marrow. 
Sell  a  whole  shelf  of  your  juvenile  books  and  buy 
it,  and  you  will  be  wise  merchant  men,  if  Dr. 
Chalmers  is  a  good  judge. — "  Sunday,  August  23. — 
I  am  reading  The  Marrow^  and  derive  from  it 
much  light  and  satisfaction.  It  is  a  masterly 
performance.  August  the  24th. — Finished  The 
Marroxv.  I  feel  a  growing  delight  in  tlie  fulness 
and  sufficiency  of  Christ.  O  my  God,  bring  me 
nearer  and  nearer  to  Thy  Son  ! "  And  of  another 
masterpiece  of  another  master  mind,  he  writes — 
"  Read  Edwards  on  the  Religious  Affections.  He  is 
to  me  the  most  exciting  and  interesting  of  all 
theological  writers."  "  Who  taught  you  to  preach 
in  that  way  ?  "  asked  David  Maclagan  one  day  long 
ago  at  Dr.  Rainy  in  the  vestry  behind  me  here. 
"John  Owen,"  was  all  the  answer.  Now,  writing  to 
Dr.  Wardlaw,  Dr.  Chalmers  says,  "I  am  reading 
Owen  just  now  on  The  Person  of  Christ.  May 
the  Spirit  more  and  more  take  of  the  things  of 
Christ  and  show  them  to  me."  And  again,  "  Have 
finished  Owen  on  Spiritual- Mindedness.  O  my  God, 
give  me  the  life  and  the  power  of  those  who  have 
made  this  high  attainment ! "  And  again,  "  Have 
you  read  Owen  on  the  Hundred  and  Thirtieth 
Psalm .?  This  is  my  last  great  book,  and  I  would 
strongly  recommend  it  as  eminently  conducive 
to  a  way  of  peace  and  holiness."  And  of  the  very 
Doddridge  against  whom  he  had  at  one  time 
warned  his  parishioners,  he  now  writes — "  I  have 
been  reading  more  of  Doddridge,  and  do  indeed 
find  myself  to    be    a   very   alienated    and   undone 


THE  MERCHANT  MAN  78 

creature.  But  let  me  cleave  to  Christ  so  as  to 
receive  all  my  completeness  from  Him."  And  of 
another  goodly  pearl,  whose  title  at  least  you  all 
know,  he  writes,  "  I  am  on  the  eve  of  finishing 
Guthrie,  which,  I  think,  is  the  best  book  I  ever 
read."  And  at  a  later  date — "  I  still  think  it  the 
best  human  composition  I  ever  read  relating  to  a 
subject  about  which  it  is  my  earnest  prayer  that  we 
may  all  be  found  on  the  right  side  of  the  question." 
Romaine  also,  was  such  a  favourite  with  Chalmers 
as  he  grew  in  years  and  in  grace  that  I  cannot 
begin  to  quote  his  constant  praise  of  that  fine 
spiritual  writer.  And  to  sum  up  with  an  extract 
from  his  Journal  that  bears  on  this  whole  question 
— "  I  breathe  with  delight  in  the  element  of  godly 
books,  and  do  fondly  hope  that  their  savour,  at  one 
time  wholly  unfelt  by  me,  argues  well  for  my 
regeneration,"  And  at  the  very  end  of  his  saintly 
and  splendid  life — "  I  am  reading  Ebenezer  Erskine 
on  The  Assurance  of  Faith,  and  I  specially  like  it. 
Its  doctrine  is  very  precious  to  me."  Such  are  some 
samples  of  the  kind  of  books  that  Dr.  Chalmers 
sold  all  in  order  to  buy  a  taste  for  them,  and  a 
life-long  enjoyment  of  them.  Let  every  divinity 
student  read  Chalmers's  Memoirs  just  before  he  is 
ordained,  and  once  again  every  three  or  four  years 
all  his  ordained  days. 

You  may  not  be  much  of  a  merchant  man  in  the 
world  of  books,  and  yet  this  parable  may  be  found 
entirely  true  of  you  in  some  other  world  of  your 
own.  "  I  have  no  books,"  said  Jacob  Behmen,  "  but 
I  have  myself."     And  Apollo  did  not  say.  Know 


74  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

many  books.  What  he  kept  saying  continually 
was  this,  "  Know  thyself."  Now,  you  may  be  this 
kind  of  a  merchant  man  that  not  some  book,  but 
some  doctrine,  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  may  be  to 
you  your  pearl  of  great  price.  The  true  and  full 
doctrine  of  New  Testament  faith,  for  instance. 
What  New  Testament,  and  evangelical,  and  justify- 
ing, and  sanctifying,  faith  really  is.  What  its  true 
object  really  is,  and  what  its  true  acts  and  opera- 
tions really  are.  The  true  nature  of  Gospel  faith 
has  been  a  perfect  pearl  of  great  price  to  some 
great  men  when  at  last  they  found  it.  It  was  so 
to  John  Wesley.  "  Preach  faith  till  you  find  it," 
said  Peter  Bohler,  Wesley's  Moravian  master,  to 
him ;  "  and  then  preach  it  because  you  have  found 
it."  And  all  the  world  knows  how  John  Wesley 
sold,  so  to  speak,  every  other  doctrine  in  order  to 
hold  and  to  preach  immediate  and  soul-saving 
faith,  and  with  what  immediate  and  soul-saving 
results.  Another  will  find  his  pearl  of  great  price 
in  the  spiritual  doctrine  of  holy  love,  as  was  the 
case  with  John  Wesley's  English  master,  William 
Law.  As  Law  did  also  in  a  whole  world  of  doctrines, 
and  habits,  and  practices,  connected  with  secret 
prayer.  And  as  George  Whitefield,  John  Wesley's 
predecessor  in  field-preaching,  discovered  such  un- 
searchable riches  to  him  in  the  Pauline  doctrines  of 
election,  and  assurance,  and  perseverance  to  the  end. 
And  as  so  many  men  of  the  Owen,  and  Goodwin,  and 
Edwards  type  liave  discovered  in  the  deep,  spiritual 
doctrines  connected  with  the  entrance  into  their 
hearts  of  the  holy  law  of  God,  and  connected  with 


THE  MERCHANT  MAN  ?5 

the  consequent  sinfulness  of  sin,  and  then  con- 
nected with  the  work  of  the  Holy  Ghost  continually 
carried  on  within  their  hearts.  And  so  on.  Till 
every  genuine  merchant  man  has  his  own  special 
pearls  of  divine  truth;  not  to  the  denying  or  the 
despising  of  other  men's  purchases ;  but  because  his 
own  pearls  of  great  price  have  so  attracted  him,  and 
have  so  enriched  him. 

But  after  all  that  has  been  said  about  pearls  of 
great  price  and  their  purchase,  every  merchant 
man's  own  soul  is  his  most  precious  pearl.  And 
our  Lord  counsels  us  all  to  sell  all  our  other  pearls, 
good  and  bad,  great  and  small,  and  buy  up  our 
own  soul  unto  everlasting  life.  "  What  is  a  man 
profited,"  our  Lord  demands  of  every  man  among 
us,  "  if  he  shall  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his 
own  soul .''  Or  what  shall  a  man  give  in  exchange 
for  his  soul  ?  "  Our  Lord  was  the  last  to  undervalue 
the  world  which  He  had  made,  and  of  which  He 
is  the  Heir,  and  yet  He  says  that  if  any  man  should 
have  this  whole  world  in  one  hand,  and  his  immortal 
soul  in  the  other  hand,  he  will  be  a  fool  of  the  first 
water  if  he  holds  to  the  whole  world  and  lets  go 
his  immortal  soul.  Yes.  The  pearl  of  all  pearls 
to  you  and  to  me  is  our  own  immortal  soul.  And 
we  do  not  have  to  compass  sea  and  land  in  search 
of  this  pearl  of  great  price.  We  have  it  in  our 
hand  already,  and  all  we  have  to  do  in  order  to  be 
the  richest  of  merchant  men,  is  to  keep  a  good  hold 
of  it.  Unless,  indeed,  we  have  already  lost  hold 
of  it.  As  we  have.  Alas,  as  we  all  have.  Oh, 
what   a   fatal   market   is   that  which   goes  on  all 


76  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

around  every  man  who  has  a  soul  to  sell  to  his 
everlasting  loss,  or  to  keep  to  his  everlasting  enrich- 
ing. Oh,  what  a  mad  market  that  is  in  which 
men's  souls,  worth  more  than  the  whole  world, 
are  sold  away  every  day  for  nought,  and  for  far 
less  than  nought.  And  thus  it  was  that  our  Lord 
was  not  content  with  warning  us  as  to  the  value  of 
our  souls ;  but  He  entered  the  soul-market  Him- 
self, and  bought  back  our  souls  at  a  price  that  has 
for  ever  j)ut  His  immense  estimate  upon  them.  He 
who  alone  knows  the  exchangeless  value  of  our 
immortal  souls.  He  came  and  redeemed  our  souls 
at  a  price  which  was  worth  far  more  than  the  whole 
world,  and  all  our  souls  to  the  bargain.  For  He 
redeemed  our  souls  at  the  price  of  His  own  precious 
blood. 

But  then  all  that  only  ends,  as  every  parable  of 
His  has  ended,  in  making  our  Blessed  Lord  Him- 
self THE  Pearl  of  all  pearls  to  us.  All  these 
partial,  and,  as  it  were,  preliminary,  pearls  take 
their  value  to  us  entirely  from  Him.  They  all  run 
up  their  values  into  Him.  All  good  books  are 
really  good  books  to  us,  just  in  the  measure  that 
they  speak  to  us  about  Jesus  Christ.  If  they  speak 
not  to  us  about  Him — take  them  away.  Light 
the  fire  with  them.  They  are  not  worth  their 
house-room.  All  our  doctrines  also  of  whatever 
kind ;  doctrines  of  science,  of  politics,  of  letters, 
of  art,  of  theology,  of  morals — all  are  sound  and 
safe  for  a  man  to  go  by  himself,  and  to  teach  his 
children  to  go  by,  only  in  the  measure  that  Jesus 
Christ  is  in  them.     It  was  really,  and  all  the  time, 


THE  MERCHANT  MAN  77 

the  Preacher  Himself  who  was  the  goodly  Pearl 
of  that  sermon  and  that  day.  "To  whom  can  we 
go,"  said  Peter  when  he  was  under  the  illumination 
of  the  Father,—"  but  unto  Thee  ?  Thou  hast  the 
words  of  eternal  life."  All  of  you,  then,  who  are 
seeking  for  goodly  pearls,  whether  in  the  world  of 
books,  or  of  doctrines,  or  of  any  other  kind  of  good 
things ;  here,  under  your  very  eye ;  here,  to  your 
very  hand,  is  the  greatest  and  the  best  Pearl  in  all 
the  world.  For  Jesus  Christ  gathers  up  into  Him- 
self all  the  truth,  and  all  the  beauty,  and  all  the 
satisfaction,  that  your  heart  has  for  so  long  been 
seeking  in  vain.  He  is  the  Father's  Pearl  of  great 
price.  He  is  the  one  perfect  Chrysolite  of  heaven 
on  sale  on  earth.  Who,  then,  on  the  spot  will  sell 
all  that  he  has,  and  will  be  for  ever  after  the  wisest 
of  merchant  men  ?  Nay,  who  will  take  away  with 
him  to-night  God's  greatest  Pearl  as  God's  free 
gift,  without  money  and  without  price  ?  For  the 
gift  of  God  is  eternal  life,  through  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord. 


78  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 


VIII 

THE  MAN  WHO  WENT  OUT  TO  BORROW 
THREE  LOAVES  AT  MIDNIGHT 

K)U  thirty  years  and  more  our  Lord 
had  been  laying  up  materials  for 
His  future  sermons.  And  He  had 
started  to  collect  His  materials  with 
something  like  this  as  one  of  His 
guiding  principles : — 

What  surmounts  the  reach 
Of  human  sense,  I  shall  delineate  so. 
By  likening  spiritual  to  corporal  forms, 
As  may  express  them  best ;  though  what  if  Earth 
Be  but  the  shadow  of  Heaven,  and  things  therein 
Each  to  other  like,  more  than  on  Earth  is  thought? 

Our  Lord  knowing  that  to  be  the  case,  and  taking 
that  for  one  of  His  guiding  principles  in  His 
preaching,  it  came  about  that  what  we  call  His 
parables,  were,  in  reality,  not  so  much  parables  of 
His  at  all,  as  they  were  His  observations  of  human 
life,  and  His  experiences  of  human  life,  with  His 
divine  intuitions  of  grace  and  truth  irradiating 
and  illuminating  them  all.  In  our  artificial  and 
superficial  way  we  think  of  our  Lord  as  making  up 


THE  MAN  ...  AT  MIDNIGHT  79 

His  parables  as  He  went  on  with  His  sermons,  and 
throwing  them  in  just  as  they  occurred  to  Him  at 
the  moment.  But  that  was  not  His  way  of  preach- 
ing at  all.  His  way  of  preaching,  and  of  preparing 
for  His  preaching,  was  a  far  better  way  than  that. 
For,  not  seldom  His  parables  were  His  own  per- 
sonal experiences,  and  His  own  immediate  observa- 
tions, collected  and  laid  up  in  His  mind  and  in  His 
memory  and  in  His  heart,  and  to  be  afterwards 
worked  up  into  His  sermons.  As  we  find  them 
worked  up  with  all  the  freshness  and  impressiveness 
and  authority  that  personal  experience  always  gives 
to  preaching,  whether  that  preaching  is  our  Lord's 
own  incomparable  preaching,  or  such  poor  preaching 
as  our  own. 

Our  Lord,  says  the  evangelist,  was  praying  in 
a  certain  place.  Our  Lord  was  always  praying, 
and  in  every  place,  and  the  evangelist  knew  that 
quite  well.  But  he  is  a  practised  and  a  skilful 
writer,  and  what  he  here  writes  is  written,  every 
word  of  it,  with  an  intended  purpose.  The  evan- 
gelist here  gives  his  readers  this  report  of  that  day 
just  as  he  had  received  it  from  an  eye  and  ear 
witness  of  the  occurrences  of  that  day,  and  he 
introduces  this  most  important  narrative  with  a 
certain  studied  circumstantiality  of  style.  There 
had  been  something  quite  out  of  the  ordinary  in 
our  Lord's  private  devotions  that  day.  He  had 
been  much  longer  absent  from  His  disciples  that 
day  than  was  His  wont.  And,  besides,  when  He 
joined  them  again  there  was  something  about  Him 
that  specially  arrested  the  attention  of  one  of  His 


80  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

disciples.  Whoever  he  was,  that  disciple  went  up 
to  his  Master  and  said  to  Him,  Lord,  teach  us  to 
praj,  as  Thou  Thyself  so  often  prayest.  And  thus 
it  was  that  that  happy  disciple,  whoever  he  was, 
got  on  the  spot,  "  Our  Father,  which  art  in  heaven," 
as  his  Master's  answer  to  his  request.  A  great 
reward  to  him  and  to  us  for  his  holy  boldness,  and 
for  his  timeous  petition  that  day.  And  not  the 
Lord's  Prayer  only ;  but  that  richly-favoured  dis- 
ciple got  for  himself  and  for  his  fellow-disciples 
and  for  us  also,  what  we  call  the  parable  of  the  friend 
at  midnight.  Our  Lord  not  only  taught  His  dis- 
ciples that  prayer  of  prayers  that  day  but — to  enforce 
the  lesson,  He  told  them  a  story  out  of  His  rich 
treasure-house  of  such  stories  ;  a  story  that  has  all 
the  freshness,  and  all  the  lifelikeness,  and  all  the 
pointedness,  of  a  personal  experience.  "  Which  of 
you,"  He  said,  turning  to  the  twelve,  "  shall  have  a 
friend,  and  shall  go  to  him  at  midnight,  and  shall 
say  unto  him.  Friend,  lend  me  three  loaves.  For 
a  friend  of  mine  on  his  journey  has  come  to  me, 
and  I  have  nothing  to  set  before  him  ? "  Now 
there  is  only  too  good  ground  for  believing  that 
the  carpenter's  house  was  one  of  the  poorest  houses 
in  all  Nazareth  and  Capernaum.  Sickness,  death, 
suretyship,  losses  in  business,  and  trouble  upon 
trouble  of  every  kind,  had  overtaken  Joseph's  house- 
hold, till,  with  all  their  industry,  and  all  their 
frugality,  his  household  would  seem  to  have  been 
poor  beyond  any  of  their  kindred  or  any  of  their 
acquaintances.  So  much  so,  that  nothing  is  more 
likely   than   that  Joseph   had   oftener   than   once 


THE  MAN  ...  AT  MIDNIGHT  81 

undergone  the  very  indignity  that  is  here  so  feel- 
ingly described.  And  not  Joseph  only,  but  He 
who  here  tells  this  touching  story  was  found  under 
Joseph's  roof  as  one  of  his  sons,  and  all  His  days 
on  earth  He  was  one  of  the  poorest  of  men.  No. 
Depend  upon  it,  He  did  not  make  up  the  parable 
of  the  importunate  poor  man  at  midnight.  He 
did  not  need  to  make  it  up.  He  was  Himself  in 
all  points  made  like  that  poor  and  importunate 
man.  Poor  and  importunate,  not  for  Himself,  but 
for  men  poorer  than  Himself  w^ho  had  thrown  them- 
selves upon  Him.  Our  Lord  was  an  experimental 
preacher.  Just  as  He  was  and  is  an  experimental 
priest. 

It  is  a  most  pathetic,  but  at  the  same  time  a 
most  amusing,  story.  It  has  been  said  sometimes 
that  our  Lord  never  laughed.  Perhaps  not.  But 
we  both  laugh  and  weep  at  once  over  this  scene  as 
He  here  sets  it  before  us.  The  well-supped  churl  is 
folded  up  in  his  warm  bed  and  is  just  falling  asleep, 
when  a  knock  comes  to  his  door  so  loud  that  it 
wakens  the  very  dogs  in  the  street.  And  then 
his  angry  denial  is  only  answered  with  louder  and 
louder  knocking.  Till  we  see  that  the  well-fed  and 
warmly  laid  down  householder  is  completely  at  the 
mercy  of  that  dreadful  neighbour  of  his  at  the  door. 
His  very  love  for  his  bed  lays  him  open  to  every 
knock  that  resounds  through  his  well-supped  and 
well-bedded  house.  I  tell  you  I  cannot  rise !  he 
shouts.  Ay,  but  he  will  have  to  rise  if  the  man 
at  the  door  only  holds  on.  Let  him  only  hold  on 
knocking  loud  enough  and  long  enough,  and  as  sure 

F 


82  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 

as  that  householder  loves  his  warm  bed,  so  sure  will 
the  traveller  in  the  other  house  get  his  supper.  And 
not  three  loaves  only.  But  once  he  is  out  of  bed  the 
sleepy  man  thrusts  more  loaves  on  the  knocking  man 
than  he  wants.  His  love  for  his  bed  makes  him  afraid 
that  this  noisy  neighbour  of  his  may  come  back 
again  before  the  night  is  over.  How  many  travel- 
lers did  you  say  had  come  to  you  ?  And  how  many 
loaves  will  they  need  ?  Three .''  Take  four.  Take 
six.  Oh,  no,  says  the  petitioner,  three  will  do. 
Take  four,  at  any  rate,  says  the  half-naked  and 
generous-hearted  householder.  Take  as  many  as 
you  can  carry,  lest  you  should  have  to  come  back 
again.  And  he  loads  the  man  at  the  door  with  an 
armful  of  his  best  bread.  Good-night !  And  he 
shuts  his  door  and  returns  to  his  bed,  glad  at  any 
cost  to  get  rid  of  such  an  untimeous  and  uncere- 
monious neighbour. 

"  Importunity ""  cannot  be  called  a  bad  rendering 
exactly.  Only  it  is  not  by  any  means  the  best 
rendering  of  the  original  writing.  Nor  does  it 
by  any  means  bring  out  to  us  the  whole  intended 
instructiveness  of  the  scene.  We  must  not  water 
down  our  Lord's  words,  even  when  they  are  too 
strong  for  our  feeble  digestion.  What  our  Lord 
actually  said  was  not  importunity  but  "  shameless- 
ness."  "  1  say  unto  you  because  of  his  shamelessness 
he  will  rise  and  give  him  as  many  as  he  needeth."" 
Think  shame,  man !  tlie  passers-by  exclaimed  as 
they  heard  him  making  that  so  disgraceful  noise  in 
the  midnight  street.  The  neighbours  also  looked 
out  of  their  windows  and  shouted  "  Think  shame ! " 


THE  MAN  ...  AT  MIDNIGHT  83 

at  him.  And  they  were  right.  For  it  was  nothing 
short  of  a  shameless  knocking  that  the  determined 
man  made.  Indeed,  it  was  the  very  shamelessness, 
that  is  to  say,  the  lateness  and  the  loudness,  of  the 
knocking,  that  was  the  success  of  it.  To  be  shame- 
less in  that  way  and  to  that  degree  was  the  man's 
wisdom,  and  hence  his  utter  shamelessness  is  our 
Lord's  very  point  with  His  disciples  and  with  us. 
Never  mind  who  cries  shame,  says  our  Lord  to  us. 
Keep  you  on  knocking,  shame  or  no  shame.  Think 
shame,  woman !  the  devil  said  to  Santa  Teresa. 
A  woman  at  your  time  of  life  having  to  make  such 
a  confession.  And  presumptuously  hoping  for  par- 
don for  such  shameless  sins.  Think  shame !  Or 
if  you  will  still  presume  to  pray  for  forgiveness,  at 
any  rate,  wait  a  little.  Do  not  go  to  God  and  you 
still  reeking  with  such  uncleanness.  Wash  in  the 
holy  water  first.  Perform  a  time  of  penance  first. 
"  The  devil  never  so  nearly  had  my  soul  for  ever,  as 
just  after  another  fall  of  mine,  and  when  he  cried. 
For  shame,  O  woman,  for  shame."  These  are  her 
very  identical  words  to  us  in  this  matter :  "  Never 
let  any  one  leave  off  prayer  on  any  pretence  what- 
soever ;  great  sins  committed,  or  any  pretence 
whatsoever.  I  tell  you  again  that  the  leaving  off 
of  prayer  after  sin  was  the  most  devilish  temptation 
I  was  ever  met  with." 

Importunity,  then,  and  shameless  importunity, 
and  that  in  midnight  prayer,  is  the  great  lesson  of 
this  scripture.  Indeed,  the  whole  point  of  the 
story  here  told  by  our  Lord  turns  upon  the  un- 
timeousness  of  the  hour  when  the  knocking  took 


84  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

place.  The  thing  could  never  have  taken  place 
in  the  daytime.  It  is  a  story  of  midnight 
importunity,  and  it  is  told  to  teach  us  the 
great  lesson  of  midnight  and  importunate  prayer. 
Travelling,  with  all  its  accompanying  incidents 
such  as  this,  takes  place  mostly  at  night  in 
the  East,  and  importunate  prayer  in  the  West. 
And  this  lesson  that  our  Lord  gives  us  is 
quite  as  much  to  teach  us  to  pray  at  night  as 
it  is  to  pray  with  importunity,  and  for  excellent 
reasons.  The  Psalms,  when  we  begin  to  attend  to 
what  we  read  and  sing,  are  full  of  night,  and  mid- 
night, and  early  morning,  prayer.  I  was  greatly 
struck,  no  longer  ago  than  last  night,  with  what  I 
had  never  felt  with  such  force  before.  I  was  reading 
the  fifth  and  sixth  verses  of  the  sixty-third  Psalm 
at  family  worship.  I  find  that  reading  a  single 
verse  sometimes  will  impress  our  hearts  at  home 
more  than  a  whole  Psalm.  Well,  I  was  reading  to 
them  those  two  verses,  and  it  occurred  to  me  to 
turn  them  round  and  read  the  sixth  verse  first  and 
then  the  fifth,  in  this  way :  "  When  I  remember 
thee  upon  my  bed,  and  meditate  on  Thee  in  the 
night  watches ;  my  soul,  as  often  as  I  do  that,  is 
always  satisfied  again  as  with  marrow  and  fatness." 
As  much  as  to  say — '  When  my  soul  thirsteth  for 
Thee ;  when  my  flesh  longeth  for  Thee ;  when  my 
soul  is  like  the  man  in  the  parable  who  had  a  hungry 
traveller  in  his  house,  and  had  nothing  to  set  before 
him  ;  then  I  remember  the  Lord.  I  remember  His 
name  and  all  that  His  name  contains.  I  remember 
His  merciful  and  gracious  name,  and  I  call  like  that 


THE  MAN  ...  AT  MIDNIGHT  85 

loud-calling  man  upon  His  merciful  and  gracious 
name.  I  meditate  and  remember,  and  remember 
and  meditate,  and  that  in  the  night  watches,  till 
my  soul  is  again  satisfied  as  with  marrow  and  fatness.' 
The  sixty-third  Psalm  is  just  the  eleventh  of  Luke 
before  the  time.  The  eleventh  of  Luke  is  all  in  the 
Psalms.  As  soon  as  we  get  all  the  best  teaching  of 
the  New  Testament  about  prayer,  we  return  and 
find  it  all  already  in  the  Psalms.  We  would  not 
have  found  it  in  the  Psalms  but  for  the  New  Testa- 
ment; only,  once  we  have  the  whole  doctrine  of 
New  Testament  prayer  taught  to  us,  we  come  to 
our  full  astonishment  at  David  and  his  companions 
in  prayer.  With  David,  then,  and  with  David's 
Son,  both  teaching  us  to  pray,  we  ourselves  should 
surely  come  to  some  success  and  proficiency  in 
prayer.  With  these,  and  with  such  a  wealth  of  other 
experiences  and  testimonies  and  examples  of  praying 
men  as  we  possess,  and  of  praying  men  at  night,  we 
should  surely  learn  to  pray.  Take  this  home  with 
you  from  Father  John  of  the  Greek  Church.  "  When 
praying  at  night,"  he  says  to  his  people,  "  do  not 
forget  to  confess  with  all  importunity,  and  sincerity, 
and  contrition,  those  sins  into  which  you  have  fallen 
during  the  past  day.  A  few  moments  of  impor- 
tunate repentance,  before  you  sleep,  and  you  will  be 
cleansed  from  all  your  iniquity.  You  will  be  made 
whiter  than  the  snow.  You  will  be  covered  with 
the  robe  of  Christ's  righteousness,  and  again  united 
to  Him.  Often  during  the  day  I  myself  have  been  a 
great  sinner,  and  at  night,  after  importunate  prayer, 
I  have  gone  to  rest  washed  and  restored,  and  with 


86  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

the  deepest  joy  and  the  most  perfect  peace  filling 
my  heart.  How  needful  it  will  be  for  our  Lord  to 
come  and  save  us  in  the  evening  of  our  life,  and  at 
the  decline  of  our  days  !  O  save  me,  save  me,  save 
me,  most  gracious  Lord,  and  receive  me  at  the  end 
of  my  days  into  Thy  heavenly  kingdom." 


THE  IMPORTUNATE  WIDOW  87 


IX 

THE   IMPORTUNATE   WIDOW 

'ITH  all  his  ungodliness  and  with  all 
his  inhumanity,  there  was  a  widow 
in  that  city  who  brought  the  unjust 
judge  to  his  senses.  His  boast 
within  himself  was  that  he  neither 
feared  God  nor  regarded  man,  but  there  was  a 
widow  in  that  city  who  made  him  both  fear  her 
and  regard  her.  There  were  many  widows  who  had 
adversaries  in  our  Lord's  land  and  day,  and  He  must 
have  known  more  than  one  of  them.  His  own 
mother  Mary  may  very  well  have  been  one  of  them. 
Who  knows  but  that  she  herself  was  this  very  widow 
with  an  adversary  ?  Nothing  is  more  likely.  At  any 
rate,  whoever  this  widow  was,  by  this  time  she 
was  driven  all  but  beside  herself  with  adversity  and 
oppression  and  robbery.  She  had  spent  all  her 
living  on  daysmen  and  mediators,  but  the  unjust 
judge  was  a  companion  of  thieves  and  he  would 
not  hear  her  advocates.  And,  had  it  not  been  for 
her  fatherless  and  fast-starving  children,  she  would 
soon  have  been  laid  out  of  sight  and  out  of  hearing 
in  her  dead  husband''s  forgotten  grave.     It  was  her 


88  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

orphaned  and  starving  children  that  made  their 
mother  to  be  like  a  she-bear  robbed  of  her  whelps. 
Avenge  me  of  mine  adversary  !  She  stood  in  the 
way  of  the  unjust  judge''s  chariot  all  day  and  cried 
out,  Avenge  me  of  mine  adversary  !  She  burst  in 
upon  the  business  of  his  court  and  cried,  Avenge  me 
of  mine  adversary  !  She  stood  under  his  window  all 
night  and  cried  out.  Avenge  me  of  mine  adversary  ! 
And  he  would  not  for  a  while.  But  after  that  day 
when  this  wild  woman  suddenly  sprang  in  upon  him 
with  a  knife  hidden  away  among  her  rags — after 
that  day  he  said,  Because  this  widow  troubleth  me, 
I  will  avenge  her,  lest  by  her  continual  coming  she 
weary  me.  There  is  a  tinge  of  blood  in  the  original 
ink  that  is  lost  in  the  tame  translation,  because 
there  was  a  gleam  of  blood  in  the  widow's  wild  eye 
on  that  last  day  of  her  warning  and  appeal  to  the 
unjust  judge.  And  the  Lord  said.  Hear  what  the 
unjust  judge  saith.  And  shall  not  God  avenge  His 
own  elect  which  cry  day  and  night  to  Him,  though 
He  bear  long  with  them  ?  I  tell  you  that  He  will 
avenge  them  speedily. 

Now  it  is  not  by  any  means  every  woman  who 
has  the  making  of  a  "  widow  indeed  "  in  her.  And  it 
is  not  by  any  means  every  soul  under  sanctification 
who  cries  for  victory  over  sin  day  and  night.  Tliere 
are  many — even  gracious  souls  among  us — to  whose 
case  this  Scripture  docs  not  by  any  means  answer. 
But  there  are  some  other  souls  who  say  unto  their 
Lord  as  soon  as  He  has  spoken  this  about  the  widow 
and  her  adversary  to  them  :  Lo,  now  speakest  Thou 
plainly,  and  speakest  no  parable.     Now  we  are  sure 


THE  IMPORTUNATE  WIDOW  89 

that  Tliou  knowcst  all  things,  and  needest  not  that 
any  man  should  ask  Thee  :  for  by  this  we  believe 
that  Thou  earnest  forth  from  God.  Such  souls  are 
sure  that  He  knows  all  things  about  them,  at  any 
rate ;  and  by  His  knowledge  of  them  and  of  their 
adversary  they  believe  that  He  has  come  forth  to 
tliem  from  God.  And,  like  one  who  has  come 
forth  from  God  and  who  knows  the  secret  things  of 
God,  He  here  announces  to  us  who  are  God's  elect 
among  us,  and  who  are  not.  Every  elect  soul,  He 
says,  is  like  that  widow  in  that  city.  For  every 
elect  soul  is  poor,  and  downtrodden,  and  dispos- 
sessed, and  desolate.  Is,  or  ought  to  be.  As  that 
widow  had  an  adversary  who  had  done  all  that  to 
her,  even  so,  every  soul,  elect  to  a  great  salvation, 
has  an  adversary  who  has  done  all  that  to  it,  and 
far  more  than  all  that.  I  do  not  know,  and  I 
cannot  tell  you,  the  name  of  that  widow's  adversary 
in  that  city.  But  if  you  do  not  know  I  will  tell 
you  the  name  of  the  universal  adversary  of  all  God's 
elect  in  this  city.  It  is  sin.  This  widow  had  only 
one  adversary,  and  so  it  is  with  the  elect.  You 
never  hear  from  their  lips  a  demand  for  vengeance 
against  any  adversary  of  theirs  but  one.  And  all 
elect  souls  have  one  and  the  same  adversary.  And 
this  is  as  good  to  them  all  as  the  seal  of  their 
election,  this,  that  their  only  and  real  adversary  is 
sin.  Now  you  would  all  like  to  be  assured,  would 
you  not,  that  you  are  among  God's  elect.''  You 
would  all  like  to  get  a  glimpse,  for  a  moment,  into 
the  book  of  God's  decrees,  so  as  to  read  your  name 
there.     But  you  do  not  need  to  climb  up  to  heaven 


.00  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

in  order  to  make  your  election  sure.  Who  is  your 
adversary  ?  Who  makes  your  life  a  burden  to  you  ? 
Who  persecutes  and  oppresses  and  impoverishes 
your  soul  day  and  night  continually?  Against 
whom  is  it  that  you,  almost  demented,  cry  without 
ceasing.  Avenge  you  of  your  adversary  ?  Sin  is  the 
spot  of  God's  children.  Sin,  and  the  woe  it  works 
in  the  soul,  is  the  seal  of  God's  elect.  Have  you 
that  spot .''  Have  you  that  seal  ?  Has  your  sin 
dispossessed  you,  and  beggared  you,  and  driven  you 
beside  yourself?  Nevertheless,  the  foundation  of 
God  standeth  sure,  having  this  seal.  Now,  are  you 
such  ?  Look  well  into  yourself  and  see.  Among 
all  your  adversaries,  who  is  it  that  drives  you  day 
and  night  to  God,  like  this  woman  to  the  judge  ? 
Do  you  think  that  our  Lord  counts  you  up  among 
His  Father's  elect  ?  I  think  He  does  ?  I  am  sure 
He  does,  if  your  adversary  that  you  cry  to  be 
revenged  upon  is  sin. 

Avenge  me  !  the  widow  cries.  Her  heart  is  full 
of  her  great  wrongs.  Her  heart  is  full  of  a  great 
rage.  Her  heart  is  full  of  fire.  And  she  here  puts 
her  hot  words  into  our  mouth.  She  teaches  our 
sin-tortured  souls  how  to  pray.  She  says  to  us, 
Remember  me.  Imitate  me.  I  got  vengeance 
done  at  last  on  mine  adversary.  Take  no  rest  until 
you  have  got  vengeance  done  on  yours.  She  being 
dead,  yet  speaketh.  Let  us  imitate  her.  Let  us 
call  on  God  as  she  called  on  the  judge.  Let  us 
dwell  day  and  night  before  God  on  our  great  wrongs. 
Let  us  keep  ever  repeating  before  Him  what  we 
have  suffered  at  our  adversary's  hands.     Tell  Him 


THE  IMPORTUNATE  WIDOW  91 

that  it  is  past  telling.  Tell  Him  that  you  are  beside 
yourself.  Tell  Him  that  all  He  can  do  to  your 
adversary  will  not  satisfy  your  fierce  feelings.  O 
sin  !  O  sin  !  How  thou  hast  persecuted  my  soul 
down  to  the  ground  !  How  thou  hast  robbed  and 
desolated  my  soul !  How  thou  hast  made  my  life  a 
burden  to  me !  How  thou  hast  driven  me  some- 
times beside  myself  with  thy  cruel  and  bitter 
bondage !  How  my  soul  sometimes  seeks  death 
to  escape  from  thee!  O  thou  foul  and  cruel 
tyrant,  I  will  surely  be  revenged  upon  thee  yet ! 

And  He  spake  this  parable  unto  them  to  this 
end,  that  men  ought  always  to  pray.  Not  once ;  not 
twice  ;  not  seven  times  ;  not  a  thousand  times.  But 
always  till  we  are  avenged  of  our  adversary.  We 
are  not  to  pray  against  a  besetting  sin  for  a  time, 
and  then  to  despair  and  let  it  have  its  own  way 
with  us.  We  are  to  pray  always.  We  are  to  pray 
on  till  we  need  to  pray  no  longer.  No  sooner  is 
one  such  prayer  oifered  than  we  are  to  begin  another. 
No  sooner  have  we  said.  Amen  !  than  we  must  say 
with  our  very  next  breath,  O  Thou  that  hearest 
prayer ;  to  Thee  shall  all  flesh  come.  No  sooner  have 
we  risen  off  our  knees  than  we  must  return  to  our 
knees.  No  sooner  have  we  opened  the  door  to 
come  out  of  our  closet  than  we  must  shut  the  door 
again,  and  return  to  our  Father  who  seethin  secret. 
To  whom  else  can  we  go  ?  To  whom  else  can  we 
tell  it  all  out,  how  our  iniquities  still  continue  to 
prevail  against  us  ? 

Always,  or  as  it  is  rendered  in  the  seventh  verse, 
day  and  night.     All  day  and  all  night ;  the  first 


92  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 

thiiifi;  in  the  morning  and  the  last  thing  at  night. 
The  first  thing  in  the  morning  and  then  all  the  day. 
When  you  open  your  eyes,  and  before  that,  always 
say  this,  When  I  awake,  I  am  still  with  Thee. 
When  you  rise  off  your  bed  always  say,  Awake,  my 
soul,  and  witli  the  sun  thy  daily  stage  of  duty  run. 
AVhen  you  wash  your  hands  and  your  face  say, 
\Vash  Thou  me,  and  I  shall  be  clean.  When  you 
bathe  your  whole  body  say.  There  is  a  fountain 
filled  with  blood,  and  sinners  plunged  beneath  that 
flood,  lose  all  their  guilty  stains.  When  you  dress 
yourself  say,  He  hath  clothed  me  with  the  garments 
of  salvation.  He  hath  covered  me  with  the  robe  of 
righteousness.  And  then  when  you  go  forth  to 
your  day's  work  say  with  David  when  he  went  forth 
to  his  day's  work.  On  Thee  do  I  wait  all  the  day. 
What  is  your  occupation  ?  Whatever  it  is  say  as 
you  again  enter  on  it,  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is 
like  this,  and  that,  more  than  on  earth  is  thought. 
Are  you  a  carpenter  ?  say  So  was  He.  Are  you  a 
mason  ?  say  Other  foundation  can  no  man  lay  than 
that  is  laid.  Are  you  a  laundress  ?  say  His  raiment 
was  shining,  exceeding  white  as  snow  ;  so  as  no  fuller 
on  earth  can  white  them.  Are  you  a  cook  ?  When 
you  burn  yourself,  then  say  with  Brother  LawTence, 
Who  among  us  shall  dwell  with  the  devouring  fire.'* 
Who  among  us  shall  dwell  with  everlasting  burn- 
ings ?  And  say  with  him  also.  Even  the  dogs  eat 
of  the  crumbs.  Are  you  a  preacher  ?  say  Lest  that 
by  any  means,  when  I  have  preached  to  others,  I 
myself  should  be  a  castaway.  Are  you  a  physician  ? 
say  Physician,  heal  thyself.     And  say  Esculapius 


THE  IMPORTUNATE  WIDOW  93 

healed  many,  but  at  last  he  succumbed  himself. 
And  say  at  every  patient^s  door  with  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  Peace  be  to  this  house,  and  health  from  the 
God  of  their  salvation.  Are  you  a  banker  ?  say  to 
yourself.  Thou  wicked  and  slothful  servant,  thou 
oughtest  to  have  put  my  money  to  the  exchangers, 
and  then  at  my  coming  I  should  have  received  mine 
own  with  usury.  And  cast  ye  the  unprofitable 
servant  into  outer  darkness.  Are  you  an  aurist  ? 
say  He  that  planted  the  ear,  shall  He  not  hear  ? 
Are  you  an  oculist  ?  say  He  that  formed  the  eye, 
shall  He  not  see  ?  Do  you  own  horses,  or  ride 
or  drive,  horses  ?  say  Be  ye  not  as  the  horse,  or  as 
the  mule,  which  have  no  understanding ;  whose 
mouth  must  be  held  in  with  bit  and  bridle.  And 
are  you  not  good  at  driving  ?  Then  say  like  the 
English  clown :  I  have  driven  into  the  ditch,  O 
Jesus  Christ,  take  Thou  the  reins  !  When  on  the 
street  you  see  a  prisoner  in  the  hands  of  his  jailor, 
say  There  goes  John  Newton,  but  for  the  grace  of 
God.  No,  it  was  when  John  Newton  saw  a  scaffold 
that  he  said  that.  And,  speaking  of  John  Newton, 
if  you  are  a  shoe-black,  say  If  only  for  the  credit  of 
Christ,  I  will  be  the  best  shoe-black  in  the  parish. 
When  you  meet  a  funeral,  take  off  your  hat  and  say 
The  sands  of  time  are  sinking.  When  you  meet 
a  marriage,  say  Behold,  the  bridegroom  cometh  ! 
AVhen  the  sun  sets  in  the  west,  say  There  shall  be 
no  night  in  heaven.  When  you  lay  your  head  down 
on  your  pillow  say,  if  only  out  of  respect  to  your 
sainted  mother.  This  night  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep, 
I  pray  the  Lord  my  soul  to  keep.    When  you  cannot 


94  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

sleep,  say  At  midnight  will  I  rise  and  praise  Thee. 
And  when  you  awake  in  the  morning,  say  Never- 
theless, I  am  still  with  Thee.  And  shall  not  God 
avenge  His  own  elect,  which  cry  day  and  night  unto 
Him,  though  He  bear  long  with  them  ?  I  tell  you 
that  He  will  avenge  them  speedily. 

There  is  a  well-known  system  of  medicine  that, 
most  paradoxically  as  one  would  think,  for  a  cure 
prescribes  a  little  more  of  that  which  caused  the 
sickness.  I  do  not  know  whether  that  is  sound 
science,  or  whether  it  is  what  its  enemies  call  it. 
That  is  not  my  field.  But  this  is.  And  I  am  safe 
and  certain  to  say  that  whether  homoeopathy  is 
sound  medicine  or  no,  it  holds  in  divinity,  and 
especially  in  this  department  of  divinity,  unfainting 
prayer  for  sanctification.  If  you  are  fainting  in 
prayer  for  sanctification  I  recommend  and  prescribe 
to  you  Samuel  Hahnemann's  dictum  similia  similihus 
curantur.  Only  not  in  small  doses.  The  opposite 
of  that.  Small  doses  in  prayer  will  be  your  death. 
The  very  thing  that  has  caused  your  whole  head  to 
be  sick,  and  your  whole  heart  to  be  faint, — hitherto 
unanswered  prayer,  answered  or  unanswered,  pray 
you  on.  The  answer  is  not  your  business.  It  is 
importunate  and  unfainting  prayer  that  is  your 
only  business.  And,  always,  more  and  more  im- 
portunate and  unfainting  prayer.  Similia  similibus. 
Mix  up  your  medicine  with  every  meal.  Make  your 
whole  meal  upon  your  medicine.  Have  it  standing 
ready  at  your  bedside  all  night.  Take  it  the  last 
thing  at  night  and  the  first  thing  in  the  morning. 
And  if  you  hear  the  hours  striking  all  night,  betake 


THE  IMPORTUNATE  WIDOW  95 

yourself  to  your  sure  febrifuge  and  sleeping  draught. 
In  plain  words,  when  you  faint  in  prayer  for  a  holy 
heart  continue  all  the  more  instant  in  that  prayer. 
Pray  always  for  a  holy  heart,  with  all  prayer  and 
supplication  in  the  Spirit,  and  watch  thereunto  with 
all  perseverance.  The  next  time  you  feel  your  heart 
ready  to  faint  in  that  kind  of  prayer,  call  to  mind 
Who  says  this  to  you,  and  where  He  says  it.  This, 
that  men  ought  always  to  pray  against  this  adver- 
sary, and  not  to  faint. 

Nevertheless,  when  the  Son  of  Man  cometh,  shall 
He  find  such  prayer  on  the  earth  ?  I  do  not  know. 
I  cannot  tell.  The  earth  is  too  large  for  me  to 
speak  for  it,  and  too  far  away  from  me.  My  matter 
is,  shall  He  find  such  prayer  in  me  ?  Shall  He  find 
me  in  my  bed,  or  on  my  knees  ?  Shall  I  be  reading 
this  parable  of  His  for  the  ten  thousandth  time  to 
keep  my  heart  from  fainting  ?  Shall,  Avenge  me 
of  mine  adversary,  be  on  my  lips  at  the  moment 
when  the  j  udgment-angel  puts  the  last  trump  to  his 
lips  ?  And  shall  I  be  found  of  him  on  my  knees, 
and  with  my  finger  on  this  scripture,  when  the 
trumpet  shall  sound,  and  I  shall  be  changed? 


g6  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 


X 

THE  PRODIGAL  SON 

CERTAIN  man  bad  two  sons.  And 
the  younger  of  them  said  to  his  father, 
Father,  give  me  the  portion  of  goods 
that  falleth  to  me.  And  he  divided 
unto  them  his  living.  And  not  many 
days  after  the  younger  son  gathered  all  together, 
and  took  his  journey  into  a  far  country,  and  there 
wasted  his  substance  with  riotous  living.  The 
country-bred  boy  had  been  told  stealthy  and 
seductive  stories  about  the  delights  of  city  life. 
'  A  young  man  with  a  little  money,"*  he  had  been 
told,  '  can  command  anything  he  likes  in  the  great 
city.  A  young  man  who  has  never  been  from  home 
can  have  no  idea  of  the  pleasures  that  are  provided 
in  the  city  for  young  men  whose  fathers  have  money. 
The  games,  the  shows,  the  theatres,  the  circuses, 
the  feasts,  the  dances,  the  freedom  of  all  kinds ; 
there  is  absolutely  nothing  that  a  young  man's 
heart  can  desire  that  is  not  open  to  him  who  brings 
a  good  purse  of  money  to  the  city  with  him.'  All 
these  intoxications  were   poured  into  this  young 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON  97 

man's  imagination,  and  he  was  but  too  good  a  pupil 
to  such  instructions. 

How  long  will  my  father  live  ?  he  began  to  ask. 
How  long  will  that  old  man  continue  to  stand  in 
my  way  ?  It  is  not  reasonable  that  a  young  man 
should  be  kept  so  long  out  of  what  really  belongs 
to  him.  It  is  not  fair  to  treat  a  grown-up  man  as 
if  he  were  still  a  child.  "  Father,  give  me  the 
portion  of  goods  that  falleth  to  me."  It  was  a 
heartless  speech.  But  secret  visions  of  sin  will  soon 
harden  the  tenderest  heart  in  the  world.  Cogitatio 
et  imaginatio,  according  to  A  Kempis,  are  the  two 
first  steps  of  a  young  man's  heart  on  its  way  down 
to  the  pit.  Keep  a  young  man's  thoughts  and 
imaginations  clean,  and  he  is  safe,  and  will  be  a 
good  son.  But  once  pollute,  by  bad  books  or  bad 
companionships,  a  young  man's  mind  and  imagina- 
tion, and  nothing  in  this  world  will  hold  that  young 
man  back  from  perdition. 

And  not  many  days  after  the  younger  son  gathered 
all  together,  and  took  his  journey  into  a  far  country, 
and  there  wasted  his  substance  with  riotous  living. 
Let  one  who  lived  for  a  long  time  in  that  far  country 
describe  it.  "  A  darkened  heart  is  the  far  country. 
For  it  is  not  by  our  feet,  but  by  our  affections,  that 
we  either  leave  Thee  or  return  to  Thee.  Nor  did 
that  younger  son  look  out  for  chariots,  or  ships,  or 
fly  with  visible  wings,  that  he  might  go  to  the  far 
country.  Unclean  affections,  and  a  God-abandoned 
heart,  that  is  the  far  country.  This  was  the  world 
at  whose  gate  I  lay  in  imagination,  while  yet  a  boy. 
And  this  was  the  abyss  of  my  vileness  when  I  was 


d8  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

cast  away  from  before  Thine  eyes.  Who  was  so 
vile  before  Thee  as  I  was  ?  I  was  vile  even  to 
myself." 

And  when  he  had  spent  all,  there  arose  a  mighty 
famine  in  that  land ;  and  he  began  to  be  in  want. 
"  A  mighty  famine  "  is  perfect  English.  It  is  one  of 
those  great  strokes  of  translation  that  sometimes 
surpass  the  original.  "A  mighty  famine"  puts  a 
perfect  picture  of  that  far  country  before  us.  Now 
what  chance,  in  the  midst  of  a  mighty  famine,  had  a 
prodigal  son  who  had  already  wasted  all  his  substance 
with  riotous  living  ?  What  hope  was  there  for 
him  ?  What  could  a  penniless  spendthrift  do  ? 
Till,  covered  with  rags,  and  with  all  his  bones 
staring  till  they  could  be  counted,  he  threw  himself 
upon  a  citizen  of  that  country,  and  said  : — '  Only 
give  me  one  crust-of-bread  and  water,  and  I  will  do 
anything  you  like  to  command  me.  I  have  a  father 
at  home,  but  that  is  far  away.  Oh,  for  my  father's 
sake,  and  he  will  repay  you,  give  me  something  to 
eat."*  And  he  sent  him  into  his  fields  to  feed  swine. 
"  Did  I  see  a  boy  of  good  make  and  mind,  with  the 
tokens  on  him  of  a  refined  nature,  cast  upon  the 
world  without  provision,  unable  to  say  whence  he 
came,  or  who  were  his  family  connections,  I  should 
conclude  there  was  some  secret  connected  with  his 
history,  and  that  he  was  one  of  whom,  from  one 
cause  or  another,  his  parents  were  ashamed."  Such 
is  Dr.  Newman's  picture  of  the  human  race,  as  it  is 
fallen  away  from  God,  and  gone  into  a  far  country. 

"And  when  he  came  to  himself." — Underline 
these  words.     Print  these  words  in  capitals.     En- 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON  99 

grave  these  words  in  letters  of  gold.  For  up  till 
now  sin  has  abounded,  but  henceforth  grace  is  much 
more  to  abound.  And  already  the  abounding  grace 
that  the  prodigal  son  is  so  soon  to  be  met  with,  is 
beginning  to  drop  from  His  lips  Who  here  tells  the 
prodigal's  sad  story.  Look  at  the  beautiful  way  in 
which  the  terrible  truth  is  softened  in  the  telling. 
Every  word  is  so  tenderly,  and  almost  apologetically, 
chosen.  You  do  not  upbraid  a  son  of  yours  when 
he  is  brought  home  to  you  safe  and  sound  from  the 
asylum.  Whatever  he  may  have  said  or  done 
during  his  illness  there,  you  refuse  to  listen  to  it. 
You  say.  My  poor  possessed  child  !  You  say.  My 
son  at  that  time  was  not  responsible.  And  you 
shut  your  ears  to  all  the  heartless  tales  they  tell 
about  what  he  said  and  what  he  did  when  he  was 
still  beside  himself.  You  rebuke  his  cruel  accusers. 
You  tell  them  that  nobody  reckons  to  a  recovered 
man  the  things  that  would  be  reckoned  and  punished 
to  an  entirely  sound-minded  man.  These  grace- 
chosen  words,  "  When  he  came  to  himself,"  already 
prepare  us  for  the  speedy  return  and  complete 
restoration  of  this  unhappy  son,  whose  infirmity 
and  affliction,  rather  than  his  sin  and  guilt,  are  the 
subject  of  his  history  as  it  is  here  told  to  us. 

"  But  when  he  was  yet  a  great  way  off,  his  father 
saw  him."'''  And  we  see  him.  Our  Lord  sees  him, 
and  He  makes  us  see  him.  Look  at  him  !  Look 
how  he  runs  !  He  runs  like  a  man  running  for  his 
life.  He  forgets  his  bleeding  feet  and  his  hungry 
belly.  He  outstrips  everybody  on  the  same  road. 
He  runs  as   he  never  ran   before.      But  when   he 


100  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 

comes  to  the  first  sio;ht  of  his  fathei"'s  house  his 
strength  suddenly  fails  him.  He  stands  still,  he 
sinks  down,  he  beats  his  breast.  He  cries  out  as 
with  an  intolerable  pain  till  the  passers-by  hasten 
on  in  fear.  The  man  is  possessed,  one  says  to 
him.  How  long  wilt  thou  be  drunken  ?  says 
anotlier.  But  he  sees  them  not.  He  hears  them  not. 
The  only  thing  he  sees  is  his  father's  house  through 
his  tears  and  his  sobs.  And  all  that  any  of  the 
people  in  the  fields  or  on  the  road  could  make  out 
from  him  was  always  this :  "  Against  thee,  thee 
only,  have  I  sinned,  and  done  this  evil  in  thy  sight !" 

And,  then,  all  this  long  far-country  time,  his 
father"'s  grey  hairs  were  being  brought  down  with 
sorrow  to  the  grave.  His  father  had  never  been 
the  same  man  since  that  evil  day  when  his  son  had 
left  his  father's  door  without  kissing  his  father. 
He  had  ever  since  that  day  gone  up  and  down  his 
house  a  broken-hearted  man.  His  very  reapers 
had  wept  for  him  as  they  saw  him  walking  up  and 
down  alone  in  his  harvest  fields.  Every  night  also 
he  sat  and  looked  out  of  his  window  till  the  darkness 
fell  again  on  all  the  land.  And  all  through  the 
darkness  he  listened  all  night  for  a  footstep  that  never 
came.  But,  at  last  one  day, — That  is  none  other  than 
my  long-lost  son !  And  when  he  was  yet  a  great 
way  off,  his  father  saw  him,  and  had  compassion, 
and  ran,  and  fell  on  his  neck,  and  kissed  him. 

And  now,  among  many  other  things,  our  Lord, 
I  feel  sure,  would  have  us  learn  from  this  family 
history  such  things  as  this — The  unspeakable  evil 
of  a  mind  early  stained  with  the  images  of  sensual 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON  101 

sin.  This  young  man  was  at  one  time  as  innocent 
of  this  sin,  and  was  as  loyal  to  his  father  and 
mother,  as  are  any  of  your  sons  or  mine.  But  on 
a  fatal  day  some  bad  man  told  him  a  bad  story. 
Some  one  whispered  to  his  heart  some  of  the  evil 
secrets  of  Satan's  kingdom.  And  then,  as  the 
Imitation  has  it,  there  was  h'rst  the  sinful  know- 
ledge, and  then  there  arose  out  of  that  a  sinful 
imagination,  a  picture  of  the  sin,  and  then  the 
young  sinner's  heart  took  a  secret  delight  in  the 
knowledge  and  the  vision,  and  then  he  sought  for 
an  opportunity,  and  the  opportunity  soon  came. 
A  bad  companion  will  do  it.  A  bad  book  will 
do  it.  A  bad  picture  will  do  it.  The  very  classics 
themselves  will  sometimes  do  it.  It  is  being  done 
every  day  in  our  bothies,  and  in  our  workshops, 
and  in  our  schools,  and  in  our  colleges.  A  bad 
story  will  do  it.  A  bad  song  will  do  it.  A  bad 
jest  will  do  it.  Indeed,  it  is  in  the  very  air  that 
all  our  sons  breathe.  It  is  in  the  very  bread  they 
eat.  It  is  in  the  very  water  they  drink.  They 
cannot  be  in  this  world  and  clean  escape  it.  For 
myself,  one  of  the  saintliest  men  I  ever  knew  once 
told  me  certain  evil  things,  just  out  of  the  evil 
fulness  of  his  heart,  when  I  was  not  asking  for 
them.  Evil  things  that  I  would  not  have  known 
to  this  day  but  for  that  conversation.  Supply  me 
with  a  knife  deep  enough  and  sharp  enough  to  cut 
that  corrupt  spot  out  of  my  memory,  and  I  will, 
from  this  moment,  cast  it  out  on  the  dunghill  of 
the  devil  for  ever — as  we  had,  at  last,  to  cut  off 
and  cast  him.     It  was  some  one  like  my  early  friend 


102  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

who  polluted  that  young  man*'s  imagination  till 
nothing  could  keep  him  back  from  becoming  the 
prodigal  son  of  whom  our  Lord  here  tells  us  all 
these  things  for  our  warning  and  for  our  rebuke. 

The  very  finest  point  in  all  this  history  full  of 
fine  points,  is  this, — "  When  he  was  a  great  way  off, 
his  father  saw  him,  and  had  compassion  on  him." 
And  there  is  nothing  more  true  in  our  own  history 
than  just  this,  and  nothing  more  blessed  for  us  to 
be  told  than  just  this,  that  our  Father  also  sees  us 
when  we  are  yet  a  great  way  off  from  Him,  and 
has  compassion  on  us.  When  we  are  just  begin- 
ning to  remember  that  we  have  a  Father;  when 
we  are  just  beginning  to  repent  toward  Him ; 
when  we  are  just  beginning  to  pray  to  Him; 
when  we  are  just  beginning  to  believe  on  Him,  and 
on  His  Son  Jesus  Christ  our  Saviour ;  when  we  are 
still  at  the  very  first  beginnings  of  a  penitent, 
returning,  obedient,  pure,  and  godly,  life ;  ay,  when 
we  are  yet  a  great  way  off  from  all  these  things, 
our  Father  sees  us,  and  has  compassion  on  us,  and 
comes  to  meet  us.  I  do  not  know  a  sweeter  or  a 
more  consoling  scripture  anywhere  than  just  this, — 
"  When  he  was  yet  a  great  way  off."  For,  what 
grace  is  in  that !  What  encouragement,  what  hope, 
what  comfort,  what  life  from  the  dead  is  in  that  ! 
Blessed  be  the  lips  that  told  this  whole  incom- 
parable story,  and  added  to  it  these  words  of  gold 
— "  a  great  way  off." 

And,  then,  to  sum  up.  This  whole  story,  in  every 
syllable  of  it,  has  its  exact  and  complete  fulfilment 
in   ourselves    every   day.       A   prince  of  Scripture 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON  103 

exposition  holds  it  to  be  doubtful  whether  our 
Lord  intends  under  this  family  story  to  set  forth 
the  first  conversion  of  a  great  sinner,  or  the  re- 
peated restorations  of  a  great  backslider.  But  the 
truth  is,  our  Lord  intends  to  set  forth  both;  and 
much  more  than  both.  For  not  one,  nor  two,  nor 
three,  but  all  the  steps  and  all  the  stages  of  sin  and 
salvation  in  the  soul  of  man,  are  most  impressively 
and  most  unmistakably  set  before  us  in  this  master- 
piece of  our  Master.  From  the  temptation  and  fall 
of  Adam,  on  to  the  marriage  supper  of  the  Lamb 
— all  the  history  of  the  Church  of  God,  and  all  the 
experiences  of  the  individual  sinner  and  saint,  are 
to  be  found  set  forth  in  this  most  wonderful  of  all 
our  Lord's  histories.  John  Howe  warns  us  that  we 
must  not  think  it  strange  if  all  the  requisites  to 
our  salvation  are  not  to  be  found  together  in  any 
single  passage  of  Holy  Scripture.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  I  will  take  it  upon  me  to  say  that 
all  the  incidents  and  all  the  experiences  of  this 
evangelical  history  are  to  be  found  together  in 
every  soul  of  man  who  is  under  a  full  and  perfect 
salvation.  In  a  well-told  story  like  this,  all  that 
the  prodigal  son  came  through,  from  first  to  last, 
must  of  necessity  be  set  forth  in  so  many  successive 
steps  and  stages  :  the  one  step  and  stage  following 
on  the  other.  But  that  is  not  at  all  the  case  in  the 
actual  life  of  sin  and  grace  in  the  soul.  The  soul 
is  such  that  it  is  passing  through  all  the  steps  and 
all  the  stages  of  sin  and  salvation  at  one  and  the 
same  time.  Some  of  the  steps  and  stages  of  sin 
and    salvation    may   be    more    present   and    more 


104  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

pressing  at  one  time  than  at  another  time,  but 
they  are  all  somewhere  or  other  within  the  soul, 
and  are  ready  to  spring  up  in  it.  We  speak  in  our 
shallow  way  about  the  Apostle  Paul  being  for  ever 
out  of  the  seventh  of  the  Romans  and  for  ever  into 
the  eighth.  But  Paul  never  spoke  in  that  superficial 
fashion  about  himself.  And  he  could  not.  For 
both  chapters  were  fulfilling  tliemselves  within 
their  profound  author:  sometimes  at  one  and 
the  same  moment.  Sometimes  the  old  man  was 
uppermost  in  Paul,  and  sometimes  the  new  man ; 
sometimes  the  flesh,  and  sometimes  the  spirit; 
sometimes  the  law  and  sin  and  death  had  Paul 
under  their  feet,  and  sometimes  he  was  more  than 
a  conqueror  over  all  the  three.  But,  all  the  time, 
all  the  three  were  within  Paul,  and  every  page  he 
writes,  and  every  sermon  he  preaches,  shows  it. 
And  so  it  is  with  ourselves,  so  far  as  this  history, 
and  so  far  as  PauPs  history,  is  our  history.  For, 
like  the  prodigal  son,  we  are  always  having  lewd 
stories  told  us  about  the  far  country.  We  are 
always  dreaming  of  being  at  liberty  to  do  as  we 
like.  We  are  always  receiving  our  portion  of 
goods,  and  we  are  always  wasting  our  substance. 
We  are  always  trying  in  vain  to  fill  our  belly  with 
the  husks  that  the  swine  do  eat.  And  we  are 
always  arising  and  returning  to  our  Father's  house. 
In  endless  ways,  impossible  to  be  told,  but  by  all 
God's  true  children  every  day  to  be  experienced, 
every  step  and  every  stage  of  the  prodigal's 
experience,  both  before  he  came  to  himself,  and 
after  it,   is   all    to    be    found    in    the    manifold. 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON  105 

boundless,  all-embracing,  experience  of  every  truly 
gracious  heart.  In  His  unsearchable  wisdom,  God 
has  set  both  the  whole  world  of  sin,  and  the  whole 
world  of  salvation,  in  every  truly  renewed  heart. 
And  that,  not  in  successive  and  surmounting  steps 
and  stages,  but  at  one  and  the  same  time.  And 
tliat  accumulating,  complex,  and  exquisitely  painful, 
state  of  things,  will  go  on  in  every  truly  regenerate 
heart,  till  that  day  dawns  when  the  greatest  prodigal 
of  us  all,  and  the  saddest  saint  of  us  all,  shall  begin 
to  be  merry. 


106  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 


XI 

THE  MUCH  FORGIVEN  DEBTOR  AND 
HIS  MUCH  LOVE 

;E  will  sometimes  ourselves  be  like 
Simon  the  Pharisee.  We  will  sonic- 
times  invite  a  man  to  come  to  take 
a  meal  with  us  when  we  do  not 
really  mean  it.  We  were  in  a  warm 
mood  of  mind  at  the  moment  when  we  asked  him 
to  dine  or  sup  with  us.  We  met  him  in  circum- 
stances such  that  we  were  led  into  giving  him  the 
invitation  when  we  did  not  really  intend  it.  So 
much  so  that  when  the  man  comes  we  had  quite 
forgotten  to  expect  him,  and  we  can  scarcely  hide 
our  vexation  at  the  sight  of  him.  Now  it  was 
something  not  unlike  that  with  Simon  the  Pharisee 
that  night. 

We  must  put  out  of  our  mind  all  our  modern 
ideas  and  all  our  sound  doctrines  about  our  Lord. 
It  is  not  easy  for  us  to  do  that,  but  we  will  never 
read  a  single  page  of  the  four  Gospels  aright,  unless 
we  2:0  back  in  imaoiiiation  to  the  exact  circumstances 
of  that  extraordinary  time.  We  must  accustom  our- 
selves to  return  to  those  early  days  when  our  Lord 


THE  MUCH  FORGIVEN  DEBTOR         107 

was  still  half  a  carpenter  of  Nazareth,  and  half  a 
preacher  at  the  street  corner.  Some  men  holding 
Him  to  be  a  prophet  come  from  God,  and  some 
holding  that  He  was  just  Joseph's  son  gone  beside 
Himself.  It  was  in  these  circumstances  that  our 
Lord  was  sometimes  invited  to  dine  or  to  sup.  His 
hosts  sometimes  forgetting  that  they  had  invited 
Him,  and  sometimes  heartily  wishing  that  He 
would  not  come,  and,  when  He  did  come,  positively 
not  knowing  what  to  do  with  Him.  Such  exactly 
was  Simon's  case.  He  had  undoubtedly  invited 
this  so-called  prophet  to  sup  at  his  house  that 
night.  But  when  He  came  at  the  hour  appointed, 
Simon  was  wholly  occupied  with  looking  after  much 
more  important  people.  When  we  arrive  at  any 
man's  door  on  his  distinct  invitation  and  see  that 
we  are  not  expected ;  when  nobody  knows  us  or 
pays  any  attention  to  us ;  when  the  head  of  the 
house  sees  us  quite  well,  but  has  not  so  much  as  a 
moment  or  a  nod  or  a  smile  to  spare  to  us, — it  is 
all  we  can  do  not  to  put  on  our  hat  and  go  away 
home  again.  And  if  we  do  go  in  and  sit  down  at 
his  table,  we  are  in  a  most  sour  and  unsocial  state 
of  mind  all  the  evening.  But  Simon's  neglected 
Guest  was  quite  accustomed  to  that  kind  of  treat- 
ment. Every  day  He  put  up  with  incivility,  and 
said  nothing.  No  insult  ever  angered  Him.  No 
openly  exhibited  or  plainly  intended  slight  ever 
embittered  Him.  And  thus  it  was  that  He  went  in 
and  sat  down  at  Simon's  supper-table  that  night, 
with  a  quiet  mind  and  an  affable  manner,  and  was 
the  best  of  neighbours  to  all  who  sat  near  Him. 


108  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

Kilt  who  and  what  is  tliis  ?  For,  behold  a  woman 
in  the  city,  which  was  a  sinner,  when  she  saw  that 
Jesus  sat  at  meat  in  the  Pharisee's  house,  brouglit 
an  alabaster  box  of  ointment,  and  stood  at  His 
feet  behind  Him  weeping,  and  began  to  wash  His 
feet  with  tears,  and  did  wipe  them  with  the  hairs 
of  her  head,  and  kissed  His  feet,  and  anointed  them 
with  the  ointment.  Now,  when  the  Pharisee  which 
had  bidden  I  Tim  saw  it,  he  spake  within  himself, 
saying.  This  man,  if  He  were  a  prophet,  would 
have  known  who  and  what  manner  of  woman  this 
is  that  toucheth  Him  :  for  she  is  a  sinner.  '  I  have 
made  a  great  mistake,'  said  Simon  within  himself. 
'  I  am  always  far  too  precipitate  with  my  invitations. 
I  might  have  known  better.  What  a  scene !  I 
will  never  hear  the  end  of  it.  I  will  never  forgive 
myself  for  it.  I  should  never  have  had  him  across 
my  doorstep.  I  was  warned  against  him  and 
against  his  followers,  and  I  see  now  that  they  who 
so  warned  me  were  right.  Whatever  he  is,  he  is 
not  a  prophet.  If  he  were  a  prophet  he  would  at 
once  have  put  a  stop  to  this  scandalous  scene.' 

Simon,  I  have  somewhat  to  say  unto  thee.  And 
he  saith,  Master,  say  on.  There  was  a  certain 
creditor  which  had  two  debtors :  the  one  owed 
five  hundred  pence,  and  the  other  fifty.  And  when 
they  had  nothing  to  pay,  he  frankly  forgave  them 
both.  Tell  Me,  therefore,  which  of  them  will  love 
him  most.?  Simon  answered,  and  said,  I  suppose 
that  he  to  whom  he  forgave  most.  And  He  turned 
to  the  woman,  and  said  unto  Simon,  Seest  thou  this 
woman  ?     I  entered  into  thine  house,  thou  gavest 


THE  MUCH  FORGIVEN  DEBTOR         109 

me  no  water  for  My  feet :  but  she  hath  washed  My 
feet  with  tears,  and  wiped  them  with  the  hairs  of 
lier  head.  Thou  gavest  Me  no  kiss :  but  this 
woman,  since  the  time  I  came  in,  hath  not  ceased 
to  kiss  My  feet.  My  head  with  oil  thou  didst  not 
anoint :  but  this  woman  hath  anointed  My  feet 
with  ointment.  Wherefore  I  say  unto  thee,  her 
sins,  which  are  many,  are  forgiven ;  for  she  loved 
much  :  but  to  whom  little  is  forgiven,  the  same 
loveth  little. 

From  that  scene,  then,  at  Simon's  supper-table, 
we  are  to  learn  this  to-night.  The  less  forgiveness, 
the  less  love  :  the  more  forgiveness,  the  more  love : 
no  forgiveness  at  all,  no  love  at  all :  but,  nothing 
but  forgiveness,  then  nothing  but  love.  And  then 
love  is  always  love.  Love,  in  short,  is  always  like 
that  woman.  If  you  would  see  love  at  its  very 
best,  just  look  at  that  woman.  Simon,  being 
neither  a  publican  nor  a  sinner,  had  needed  so 
little  forgiveness  that  he  had  not  love  enough  to 
provide  his  Saviour  with  a  bason  and  water  where- 
with to  wash  His  feet.  Simon  had  neither  love 
enough,  nor  anything  else  enough,  to  teach  him 
good  manners.  I  am  afraid  for  Simon.  For,  even 
a  very  little  forgiveness,  even  fifty  pence  forgiven, 
even  five  pence,  even  five  farthings,  would  surely 
have  taught  Simon  at  least  ordinary  civility. 
When  I  see  any  man  among  you  hard  and  cruel 
to  another  man,  discourteous  and  uncivil,  not  to 
say  intentionally  and  studiously  insolent,  I  say  to 
myself,  either  that  man  has  not  yet  been  forgiven 


110  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

at  all,  or  he  has  been  forgiven  so  little  that  he  does 
not  feel  it  any  more  than  a  stone.  The  truth  is, 
grant  forgiveness  enough  and  you  will  soon  convert 
the  greatest  churl  among  you  to  be  the  most  perfect 
gentleman  among  you.  Nothing  else  will  do  it, 
but  forgiveness  enougli  will  do  it.  Grant  forffive- 
ness  enough,  and  love  enough,  and  you  will  have 
all  considerateness,  all  civility,  all  generosity,  all 
gratitude,  springing  up  in  that  mane's  heart. 
Would  you  have  a  true  gentleman  for  a  friend, 
or  for  a  lover,  or  for  a  husband,  or  for  a  son  ? 
Then  manage,  somehow,  to  have  him  brought  to 
Simon's  Guest  for  a  great  forgiveness,  and  the 
thing  is  done. 

This,  then,  was  the  whole  of  Simon"'s  case.  He 
called  our  Lord  Master,  in  as  many  words.  He 
had  our  Lord  at  his  table  that  night ;  but,  all  the 
time,  he  loved  our  Lord  very  little,  if  any  at  all. 
In  other  words,  Simon  had  been  forgiven  by  our 
Lord  very  little,  if  any  at  all.  Simon  did  not  need 
much  forgiveness,  if  any  at  all,  and  in  that  measure 
Simon's  case  was  hopeless.  Simon,  in  short,  was  a 
Pharisee,  and  that  explains  everything  concerning 
Simon.  I  know  nothing  more  about  Simon  than  I 
read  in  this  chapter.  I  know  nothing  of  his  past 
life.  I  suppose  it  was,  touching  the  righteousness 
which  is  in  the  law,  blameless.  But,  blameless  or 
no,  I  am  sure  of  this  about  Simon,  that  the  holy 
law  of  God  had  never  once  entered  Simon's  heart. 
All  Simon's  shameful  treatment  of  our  Lord,  and 
all  his  deep  disgust  at  that  woman,  and  all  his 
speeches  to  himself  within  himself,  all  arose  from 


THE  MUCH  FORGIVEN  DEBTOR        111 

the  fact  that  the  holy  law  of  God  against  all  kinds 
of  sin  and  sinners,  and  especially  against  himself, 
had  not  yet  begun  to  enter  Simon's  hard  heart. 
My  brethren,  to  make  the  holy  law  of  God  even 
to  begin  to  enter  your  hard  heart  would  be  the 
greatest  service  to  you  that  any  man  could  do  to 
you.  Only,  no  man  can  do  you  that  service.  No 
mere  man,  as  the  Catechism  says,  but  that  Man 
only  who  sat  that  night  at  Simon's  supper-table 
and  said  to  him, — "  Simon,  I  have  somewhat  to  say 
unto  thee.""  Your  minister  may  preach  to  you  till 
he  is  old  and  grey-headed,  but  he  will  be  to  you  as 
one  that  plays  on  an  instrument ;  you  will  not  take 
him  seriously.  You  will  pay  no  attention  to  him, 
till  after  the  law  enters.  And  just  to  the  depth 
and  to  the  poignancy  with  which  the  law  of  God 
enters  your  sinful  heart,  just  in  that  measure  will 
you  possess  in  your  broken  heart  a  great  or  a  small 
forgiveness,  and  will  manifest  before  God  and  man 
a  great  or  a  small  gratitude.  Let  no  true  preacher 
then  be  brow-beaten  by  all  the  Pharisees  in  the 
world  from  labouring  to  make  the  law  enter  the 
innermost  hearts  of  his  people :  both  the  law  legal, 
and  the  law  evangelical. 

Then  they  that  sat  at  meat  with  Him  began  to 
say  within  themselves.  Who  is  this  that  forgiveth 
sins  also  ?  He  and  they  had  up  till  now  been 
talking  in  the  most  friendly  way  together  as  they 
ate  and  drank.  They  had  been  talking  over  the 
latest  news  from  Rome  and  Jerusalem  :  over  the 
gossip  of  the  town :  over  the  sudden  deaths  of  last 


112  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

week,  and  over  the  foul  and  fair  weather  of  last 
week :  when,  suddenly,  their  talk  was  cut  short  by 
the  unaccountable  conduct  of  that  woman.  Some  of 
them  who  sat  at  meat  with  Him  had  for  months 
past  been  much  exercised  in  their  minds  about  Him, 
At  one  time  they  had  thought  one  tiling  about  Him, 
and  at  another  time  they  had  thought  another  thing 
about  Him.  Some  could  scarcely  eat  tlieir  supper 
for  watching  Him,  how  He  ate,  and  how  He  drank, 
and  how  He  talked,  and  all  what  He  said  and  did. 
Till,  when  He  spoke  out,  and  told  the  story  of  the 
creditor  and  his  two  debtors,  and  then  wound  up 
the  story  with  such  a  home-thrust  at  Simon,  they 
wished  themselves  seated  at  another  table.  They 
wished  that  they  were  well  home  again.  And  then 
when  His  voice  rose  to  a  tenderness  and  a  solemnity 
they  had  never  heard  in  any  man's  voice  and  manner 
before,  it  was  no  wonder  that  they  said  within 
themselves,  Who  is  this  that  forgiveth  sins  also  ? 

Now,  listen  to  this,  my  brethren.  Listen,  and 
receive  this.  That  same  Man  who  forgiveth  sins 
is  here  also.  Here,  at  this  moment,  in  this  house. 
And  He  is  here  on  the  same  errand.  He  is  here 
seeking  and  saving  sinners.  Come  to  His  feet  then 
as  that  sinful  woman  came.  Come  if  you  are  as 
unspeakably  vile  as  she  was,  and  with  the  same 
unspeakable  vileness.  Come  if  she  is  your  sister  in 
sin.  Up  till  to-night  a  Pharisee  like  Simon ;  or  up 
till  to-night  a  harlot  like  this  woman ;  equally 
come.  And  come  all  the  more  quickly.  This 
woman  was  on  her  way  to  throw  herself  into  the 
pond  when  she  heard  our  Lord  preaching  one  of  His 


THE  MUCH  FORGIVEN  DEBTOR         113 

sermons  of  salvation  :  and  before  He  had  done  witli 
His  sermon  she  was  at  His  feet.  Come  even  if 
you  are  intending  to  take  your  own  life  to-night. 
A  woman  once  had  the  arsenic  bought  on  a  Satur- 
day night,  when  she  said  to  herself  that  she  would 
go  once  more  to  the  church  before  she  took  it. 
The  text  that  morning  was  this :  What  profit  is 
there  in  my  blood  ?  She  told  me  her  whole  story 
long  afterwards.  Come  if  you  have  the  arsenic  in 
your  pocket.     Come  and  cast  it  at  His  feet. 

And  then  He  will  have  in  you  the  wages  for 
Avhich  He  worked ;  for  how  you,  for  one,  will  love 
Him  !  Jesus  Christ  is  not  easily  satisfied  with  love ; 
but  He  will  be  satisfied,  and  to  spare,  with  your 
love.  And  every  day  on  earth  will  add  coals  of 
fire  to  your  love  to  your  Redeemer.  And  no 
wonder.  For  He  will  have  to  say  to  you  ten 
thoiisand  times  this  same  thing :  Thy  sins,  which 
are  still  many,  are  all  forgiven  thee.  Again,  and 
again,  and  again,  He  will  have  to  say  it,  for, 
having  begun  to  say  it  to  you,  He  will  say  it  to  you 
to  the  end.  Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee,  go  in 
peace,  He  will  say. 

Samuel  Rutherford  was  wont  to  set  this  riddle 
of  love  to  the  old  saints  in  Anwoth  :  Whether 
they  would  love  their  Saviour  more  for  their  j  usti- 
fication  or  for  their  sanctification .?  And  some 
said  one  thing  and  some  said  another  thing. 
And  some  wary  old  ones  said  both  things.  Oh 
yes  !  What  a  love,  passing  all  earthly  love,  will 
He  be  loved  with  to  all  eternity  !  By  some  men 
and    some   women,   that   is.      All   His    redeemed 

H 


114  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

Mrill  love  Him,  but  some  will  love  Him  more 
than  these.  To  have  been  frankly  forgiven  such  a 
fearful  debt,  and  then,  as  if  that  were  not  enough, 
to  have  been  washed  whiter  than  the  snow,  and 
|from  such  unspeakable  pollution.  Tell  me,  there- 
fore, which  of  them  will  love  Him  most .''  I  suppose 
that  they  to  whom  He  forgave  most.  Yes;  but 
what  about  those  to  whom  He  did  both  ?  Both 
frankly  forgave  them  their  fearful  debt ;  and  also, 
though  their  sins  were  as  scarlet :  though  they 
were 

From  scalp  to  sole  one  slough  and  crust  of  sin, 

made  them  as  white  as  snow ;  and  though  they 
were  red  like  crimson,  made  them  to  be  as  wool. 
Let  Rutherford  take  that  woman  for  his  answer. 
For  no  better  answer  will  ever  be  given  to  his 
riddle  of  love  in  this  world.  Behold,  a  woman  in 
the  city,  which  was  a  sinner,  brought  an  alabaster 
box  of  ointment,  and  stood  at  His  feet  behind  Him 
weeping,  and  began  to  wash  His  feet  with  tears, 
and  did  wipe  them  with  the  hairs  of  her  head,  and 
kissed  His  feet,  and  anointed  them  with  the  oint- 
ment. Wherefore  I  say  unto  thee,  her  sins,  which 
are  many,  are  forgiven ;  for  she  loved  much. 

When  I  stand  before  the  throne 
Dressed  in  beauty  not  my  own 
When  I  see  Thee  as  Thou  art. 
Love  Thee  with  unsinning  heart. 

Then,  Lord,  shall  I  fully  know, 

Not  till  then  how  much  I  owe. 


THE  MUCH  FORGIVEN  DEBTOR         115 

Chosen  not  for  good  in  me. 
Wakened  up  from  wrath  to  flee, 
Hidden  in  the  Saviour's  side, 
By  the  Spirit  sanctified. 

Teach  me.  Lord,  on  earth  to  show. 

By  my  love,  how  much  I  owe. 


116  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 


XII 
THE  TEN  VIRGINS 

EVERYTHING  that  our  Lord  saw  on 
tlie  earth  immediately  made  Him 
think  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
Our  Lord  was  of  that  angePs  mind 
who  said  to  Adam, — '  What  if  earth 
be  but  the  shadow  of  heaven,  and  things  therein 
each  to  other  like,  more  than  on  earth  is  thought.' 
And  thus  it  was  that  when  our  Lord  and  His 
disciples  were  called  to  that  marriage  where  the 
original  of  this  parable  took  place,  as  soon  as  He 
saw  the  five  wise  virgins  admitted  to  the  marriage, 
and  the  five  foolish  virgins  shut  out.  He  turned  to 
the  twelve  and  said, — The  kingdom  of  heaven  is 
just  like  that.  It  would  have  been  well,  and  we 
would  have  been  deep  in  their  debt,  had  some  of 
the  twelve  said  to  their  Master  at  that  moment : 
Declare  to  us  the  parable  of  the  ten  virgins  also. 
It  would  have  been  a  great  assistance  to  us  if,  over 
and  above  the  parable  itself,  we  had  possessed  our 
Lord's  own  exposition  of  it.  For,  who  and  what 
are  the  ten  virgins,  and  why  are  they  so  called  ? 
Why  are  they  exactly  ten,  and  why  are  they  so 
equally  divided  into  five  and  five  ?     What  are  their 


THE  TEN  VIRGINS  117 

lamps  also,  and  what  are  their  vessels  with  their 
lamps,  and  what  is  the  oil  that  the  wise  had,  and 
that  the  foolish  had  not  ?  What  does  the  tarrying 
of  the  bridegroom  mean,  and  what  the  slumbering 
and  sleeping  of  the  whole  ten  ?  And  then  who  are 
they  that  make  the  midnight  cry,  Behold  the  bride- 
gi-oom  cometh  ?  And  then  the  hurried  trimming 
of  the  lamps,  with  the  going  out  of  the  lamps  of 
the  foolish, — what  is  the  meaning  of  all  that  ? 
The  request  of  the  foolish  for  a  share  of  the  oil  of 
the  wise,  with  the  refusal  of  the  wise  to  part  with 
any  of  their  oil, — what  are  the  spiritual  meanings 
hidden  under  all  that  ?  And  specially,  who  sell 
the  oil,  and  where  do  they  sell  it,  and  at  what 
price  ?  And  then  the  shutting  of  the  door  ? 
And  then  what  it  is  to  be  ready  ?  as  well  as  what  it 
is  to  watch,  and  when  we  are  to  watch,  and  where  ? 
It  would  have  been  an  immense  service  done  to  us 
all  had  the  disciples  petitioned  their  Master  for  His 
own  authoritative  answer  to  all  these  questions. 
As  it  is,  we  are  left  to  our  own  insight  into  the 
things  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  to  our  own 
experience  of  its  mysteries,  to  find  out  for  ourselves 
and  for  others  the  true  key  to  this  parable. 

The  wisdom,  whatever  it  was,  of  the  five  wise 
virgins  is,  plainly,  the  main  lesson  set  to  be  learned 
out  of  this  whole  parable.  All  the  rest  of  its 
lessons,  however  good  and  however  true,  are  sub- 
ordinate to  that.  All  the  rest  is,  more  or  less,  the 
framework  and  the  setting  of  that.  Other  lessons, 
more  or  less  essential,  more  or  less  interesting,  and 
more  or  less  instructive,  may  be  extracted  out  of  this 


118  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 

remarkable  parable,  but  its  supreme  and  command- 
ing lesson  is  the  richly  rewarded  wisdom  of  the  five 
wise  virgins.  They  that  were  foolish  took  their 
lamps,  and  took  no  oil  with  them.  But  the  wise 
took  oil  in  their  vessels  with  their  lamps. 

Now  if  you  would  fain  know  what,  exactly,  this 
oil  is  of  which  so  much  is  made  in  this  parable,  this 
oil  the  possession  of  which  made  the  five  virgins  so 
wise,  just  look  into  your  own  heart  for  the  answer  to 
that.  What  is  it  that  makes  your  heart  to  be  so 
dark,  and  so  sad,  and  so  unready,  sometimes  ?  Why 
is  there  so  little  life  and  light  and  joy  in  your  heart  ? 
Why  is  your  religious  experience  so  flat  and  so 
stale,  when  it  should  be  as  full  of  gladness  as  if  your 
whole  life  were  one  continual  making  ready  for  your 
marriage?  What  is  really  the  matter  with  you 
and  with  your  heart  ?  In  plain  English,  and  in  few 
words,  it  is  the  absence  from  your  heart  of  the  Spirit 
of  God.  It  is  God's  Holy  Spirit  Who  makes  God 
Himself  to  be  so  full  of  Life  and  Light  and  Blessed- 
ness. It  is  God's  Holy  Spirit  Who  makes  our  Lord 
Himself  what  He  always  is,  and  what  He  always 
says  and  does.  The  fruit  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  God 
and  in  man,  on  earth  and  in  heaven,  is  love,  joy, 
peace,  longsuffering,  gentleness,  goodness.  Now, 
that  is  the  whole  of  the  matter  with  us  all.  It  is 
the  lack  of  the  Spirit  of  God  that  makes  all  of  us  to 
be  the  lump  of  darkness  and  death  that  we  are.  If 
we  had  God's  Holy  Spirit  shed  abroad  in  our  heart 
we  would  make  every  house  in  which  we  live,  and 
every  company  into  which  we  enter,  like  a  continual 
marriage  supper.     Our  very  face  would  shine  with 


THE  TEN  VIRGINS  119 

heavenly  light,  and  we  would  shed  abroad  life  and 
love  and  beauty  everywhere  we  go.  No  question, 
then,  what  this  oil  is,  nor  why  we  are  such  children 
of  the  day  when  we  have  it,  and  are  such  children 
of  the  night  when  we  have  it  not.  Fix  this  firmly 
in  your  mind,  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  this  light- 
giving  and  life-giving  oil,  and  you  will  have  in  that, 
not  only  the  true  key  to  this  whole  parable,  but  at 
the  same  time  the  true  key  to  all  your  own  light 
and  darkness  also. 

"  Not  so  :  lest  there  be  not  enough  for  us  and  you  : 
but  go  ye  rather  to  them  that  sell,  and  buy  for  your- 
selves." You  go  to  the  oil-sellers  when  your  oil  is 
done,  and  when  the  long  and  dark  nights  are  coming 
on.  And,  in  the  very  same  way,  you  must  go  to 
God  for  the  Holy  Spirit.  God  the  Father  is  the 
real  seller  of  this  Holy  Oil.  The  Holy  Ghost  pro- 
ceeds from  the  Father.  The  Son  Himself  had  the 
Holy  Ghost,  not  of  Himself,  but  of  the  Father. 
When  the  night  fell  the  wise  virgins  had  the  oil 
already  in  their  vessels.  They  had  been  at  the  oil- 
sellers  in  good  time,  and  before  the  darkness  fell. 
Go  you  in  good  time  also.  Be  beforehand  with 
the  darkness.  Have  the  Holy  Ghost  already  in 
your  heart,  and  then  you  will  not  walk  in  darkness, 
nor  be  shut  out  into  the  darkness,  however  suddenly 
the  Bridegroom  may  come. 

And  then  this  is  the  remarkable  law  of  this  oil- 
market.  "  What  things  soever  ye  desire,  when  ye 
pray,  believe  that  ye  receive  them,  and  ye  shall  have 
them."  That  is  to  say,  as  soon  as  in  prayer  you  ask 
the  Father  for  the  Holy  Spirit,  immediately  believe 


120  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

that  your  prayer  is  answered.  Immediately  begin 
to  live  in  the  Spirit.  Immediately  begin  to  walk  in 
the  light.  Do  not  put  off'  walking  in  the  light  till 
you  feel  your  heart  full  of  light  and  love  and  joy 
and  peace  and  all  such  holy  illumination.  But 
begin  at  once  to  live  in  the  Spirit,  and  He  will 
begin  to  live  in  you.  As  soon  as  you  begin  to  ask 
for  the  Spirit  of  love  and  joy  and  peace  to  be  shed 
abroad  in  your  heart,  begin  yourself  to  shed  that 
Spirit  abroad  in  all  your  life.  Let  all  your  w^ords 
and  deeds,  let  all  your  moods  of  mind,  and  all  your 
affections  of  heart,  be  full  of  love  and  joy  and  peace, 
and  He  will  not  fail  to  work  in  you  to  will  and  to 
do  of  His  good  pleasure.  This  is  a  most  wonderful 
oil,  and  a  most  wonderful  oil-market,  and  a  most 
wonderful  oil-merchant !  Go  all  of  you  to  Him  who 
sells,  and  buy  for  yourselves,  and  you  will  soon  be 
wiser  in  this  divine  marketry  than  all  your  teachers. 
Were  I  to  enter  on  all  the  times,  and  all  the  places, 
when  and  where,  this  holy  oil  is  bought  and  sold,  I 
would  have  to  say  of  it  that  there  is  no  time  and  no 
place  when  and  where  you  may  not  buy  this  oil. 
At  the  same  time  there  are  special  seasons,  and 
sj^ecial  spots,  when  and  where,  as  a  matter  of  experi- 
ence, that  oil  is  specially  dispensed  to  all  buyers. 
Olive  oil,  and  all  other  kinds  of  oil,  are  to  be  bought 
in  the  oil-shops.  And  the  Holy  Ghost  is  best  to  be 
bought,  is  only  to  be  bought,  in  secret  prayer.  Oil 
merchants  advertise  their  oil ;  its  qualities  and  its 
prices  and  where  their  place  of  business  exactly  is. 
And  here  is  a  copy  of  the  heavenly  advertisement : 
"  Ask,  and  it  shall  be  given  you ;  seek,  and  ye  shall 


THE  TEN  VIRGINS  121 

find ;  knock,  and  it  shall  be  opened  to  you.  For 
how  much  more  shall  your  Heavenly  Father  give 
the  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask  Him."  And  again  : 
"  But  thou,  when  thou  prayest,  enter  into  thy  closet, 
and  when  thou  hast  shut  thy  door,  pray  to  thy 
Father  which  is  in  secret,  and  thy  Father  which 
seeth  in  secret  shall  reward  thee  openly."  Could 
any  thing  be  clearer .?  Could  anything  be  plainer  .f^ 
A  wayfaring  man,  though  a  fool,  could  not  miss 
where  this  oil  is  to  be  had.  "  What,"  demanded  his 
Master,  in  shame  and  pain  at  Peter''s  sloth  and 
indifference  in  this  very  same  matter,  "  AVhat,  could 
ye  not  Avatch  with  Me  one  liour  ?  "  Watch  and  pray 
for  the  Holy  Spirit,  He  means.  For  it  was  just 
this  heavenly  oil  that  Peter  needed  above  all  tilings 
that  dark  and  sudden  midnight.  And  had  Peter 
but  spent  that  one  hour  with  Him  who  liears  prayer 
and  thus  sells  His  oil,  he  would  have  played  a  far 
better  part  all  through  the  thick  darkness  of  that 
dark  night,  and  all  through  the  still  thicker  dark- 
ness of  to-morrow  and  to-morrow  night.  It  is  still 
the  old  story,  my  brethren.  There  is  no  getting 
past  the  old  story.  You  had  better  yield  and  sur- 
render at  once.  That  "  hour"  of  prayer,  wliich  is 
now  so  haunting  you,  will  never  all  your  days  let 
you  alone.  It  will  follow  you  wherever  you  go  and 
whatever  you  are  doing.  Not  till  the  door  is  shut 
will  that  secret  "  hour"  of  prayer  give  over  pursuing 
you.  Not  till  it  ceases  pursuing  you  and  says, 
Sleep  on  now,  and  take  your  rest ! 

Though  it  is  literally  true  that  this  holy  oil  is  to 
be  had  for  the  asking,  at  the  same  time,  and  as 


122  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

a  matter  of  fact,  what  amounts  to  a  tremendous 
price  has  to  be  paid  down  for  it.  As  Seneca  says, 
"  Nothing  is  so  dear  as  that  which  is  bought  by 
prayer."  A  man  may  buy  oil  for  his  household 
lamps  to  last  him  for  a  whole  winter,  and  yet  may 
not  be  sensibly  the  poorer  for  his  purchase.  He 
may  pay  his  oil  bill,  and  yet  have  plenty  of  money 
left  wherewith  to  buy  wine  and  milk  for  himself 
and  for  his  family.  But  not  in  this  oil-market. 
To  buy  the  Holy  Spirit  is  as  costly  to  a  sinner  as 
buying  Christ  Himself  and  all  His  righteousness. 
And  you  know  how  penniless  that  purchase  left 
Paul,  Indeed,  ever  since  Paul's  day  the  price  of 
Christ  and  His  righteousness  has  been  a  proverb  of 
impoverishment  in  the  Church  of  Christ.  And  had 
the  apostle  been  led  to  tell  us  how  much  he  liad  to 
lay  down  to  win  the  Holy  Spirit,  it  would  j  ust  have 
been  the  same  all-impoverishing  story  over  again. 
Not  one  penny  had  Paul  left.  Not  one  farthing. 
And  so  is  it  with  every  man  who  once  really  enters 
this  same  oil-market.  If  you  do  not  follow  my 
argument,  just  take  an  hour  to-night  in  that  market 
for  yourself,  and  tell  me  to-morrow  morning  how 
you  get  on  in  it.  Tell  me  how  much  you  have  left 
to  call  your  own  after  you  have  once  bought  this 
priceless  oil.  See  what  it  will  cost  you  so  much  as 
to  enter  this  oil  emporium.  There  are  some  places 
of  sale,  bazaars  and  such  like,  where  a  great  income 
is  made  just  by  the  entry-money.  Tell  me  how 
much  is  demanded  of  you  before  you  are  able  to 
shut  your  door  upon  God  and  yourself  alone  to- 
night, not  to  speak  of  what  He  will  charge  you  for 


THE  TEN  VIRGINS  123 

the  oil  after  you  are  in.  You  will  see  how  every- 
thing you  have  hitherto  valued  will  have  to  go. 
No  wonder  that  only  the  half  of  the  ten  virgins  had 
the  heart  to  make  the  impoverishing  purchase.  For 
my  part,  I  often  wonder  there  were  so  many. 

Our  Lord  does  not  explicate,  point  by  point,  all 
this  parable  to  us,  but  He  is  most  emphatic,  and 
even  alarming,  in  His  application  of  it.  Watch,- 
therefore.  He  warns  us,  for  ye  know  neither  the  day 
nor  the  hour  wherein  the  Son  of  Man  cometh.  He 
may  be  here,  and  your  time  may  be  at  an  end  any 
moment.  And  then,  it  takes  far  more  time  than  you 
would  think  to  buy  this  oil  and  to  have  it  always 
ready.  Even  to  get  well  into  the  place  where  this 
oil  is  sold  takes  time.  To  get  your  money  ready 
takes  time.  To  get  your  vessel  well  filled  takes 
time.  And  to  make  due  allowance  for  all  the 
obstacles  and  accidents  by  the  way,  and  for  all  the 
unforeseen  interruptions  and  delays  in  the  market, 
— all  that,  taken  together,  takes  up  more  time  than 
any  one  would  believe  beforehand ;  immensely  more 
time  and  trouble  than  any  one  would  believe  who 
has  not  gone  through  it  all.  And  thus  it  is  that 
our  Lord  is  always  pleading  with  us  to  give  an  hour 
to  it  every  night.  Better  too  much  time,  He  argues 
with  us,  than  too  little.  You  may  get  through  the 
transaction  quicker  than  some  others.  He  admits. 
But  then  there  is  this  also,  that  it  may  turn  out  to 
take  much  more  time  in  your  case  than  you  have 
left  to  give  it. 

And,  once  more,  watch,  for  the  wisest  are  some- 
times to  be  found  playing  the  fool,  like  the  foolish, 


124  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

in  this  tremendously  precarious  matter.  The  five 
wise  virgins  shmibercd  and  slept  when  they  should 
have  been  employing  their  spare  time  in  trimming 
their  lamps,  and  in  keeping  both  themselves  and  their 
fellows  awake  and  ready.  And  had  it  not  been  that 
they  were,  all  the  time,  much  wiser  than  they  seemed 
to  be,  they  would  have  been  shut  out  with  the  rest. 
But  as  it  tvu'ned  out  they  had  oil,  all  the  time, 
in  their  vessels  with  their  lamps.  And  that  made 
all  the  diiFerence  when  the  bridegroom  came  so 
suddenly.  Now,  where,  and  how,  will  the  same 
difference  come  in  among  ourselves?  It  will  come 
in,  and  you  will  see  it,  this  very  night,  and  in  this 
very  way.  To-night  some  here  will  hasten  liome  as 
soon  as  the  blessing  is  pronounced.  They  will  try 
to  escape  their  talkative  neighbours  at  the  door. 
All  the  time  of  supper  and  prayers  at  home  they 
will  be  hiding  this  terrible  parable  in  their  hearts. 
And  then  wlien  the  house  is  quiet,  the  true  business 
of  this  whole  day  will  begin  with  those  wise  men. 
I  have  told  you  before,  but  not  once  too  often,  of  a 
Sabbath  night  I  once  spent  long  ago  in  the  Ahick 
Avith  old  John  Mackenzie.  After  supper  and  prayers 
I  petitioned  for  another  half-hour's  reading  of  the 
notes  he  had  preserved  of  Dr.  .John  Duncan's  Persie 
sermons.  "  Pardon  me,"  said  the  old  saint,  "  but  we 
always  take  our  camlles  immediately  after  prayers." 
The  difference  will  be  that  the  foolish  among  us 
will  sit  to-night  and  talk  and  talk  till  they  ex- 
tinguish this  parable  and  all  its  impressions  clean  off 
their  minds  and  their  hearts,  while  the  wise  among 
us  will  take  their  candles. 


THE  GUEST  IN  THE  LOWEST  ROOM      125 


XIII 

THE  WEDDING  GUEST  WHO  SAT  DOWN 
IN  THE  LOWEST  ROOM 

T  is  my  deliberate  opinion  that  this 
wedding  guest  who  sat  down  in  the 
lowest  room  was  none  other  than  our 
Lord  Himself.  I  think  I  see  enough 
to  justify  me  in  believing  that  this 
parable  was  no  parable  but  was  an  actual  experience 
of  our  Lord  Himself.  I  feel  as  sure  as  if  I  had  seen 
Him  do  it,  that  He  sat  down  in  the  lowest  room 
when  He  entered  that  supper  chamber.  The  two 
sons  of  Zebedee  chose  out  the  chief  rooms  for  them- 
selves, their  mother  encouraging  them  to  do  it. 
Go  up  yonder,  she  said.  There  are  two  seats  at 
the  head  of  the  table,  go  up  at  once  and  take 
them.  And  they  went  up,  their  mother  pushing 
them  up.  But  Mary  and  her  Son  sat  down  at  the 
foot  of  the  table.  The  more  I  imagine  myself 
present  at  that  marriage,  the  more  convinced  I 
become  that  our  Lord  was  that  humble-minded 
man  Himself.  At  any  rate,  whether  our  Lord  only 
invented  and  composed  this  parable,  or  actually 
Himself  experienced  it,  at  any  rate,  it  has  all  been 


126  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

performed  by  Him  and  fulfilled  to  Him  by  this 
time,  in  every  jot  and  tittle  of  it,  first  in  His 
earthly  life,  and  then  in  His  heavenly  life.  For 
did  He  not  sit  down  in  the  lowest  room  in  the 
over-crowded  inn  ?  And  as  His  birth  was  so  was 
His  whole  life  on  earth  down  to  the  end  of  His 
life  in  the  lowest  of  all  this  earth's  low  rooms. 
Till  a  Voice  came  from  the  head  of  the  table, 
which  said  to  Him,  Friend,  come  up  higher.  And 
now,  as  this  parable  says.  He  has  worship  in  the 
presence  of  them  that  sit  at  meat  with  Him.  Yes ; 
I  for  one  am  to  delight  myself,  and  impress  myself, 
and  instruct  and  rebuke  myself,  with  believing  that 
our  Lord's  whole  earthly  life,  and  now  His  whole 
heavenly  life,  was  all  enacted,  in  small,  at  that 
wedding  supper  to  which  He  was  called  and  with 
Him  His  twelve  disciples. 

"  A  new  commandment  give  I  unto  you,"  said 
their  Master  to  His  disciples  at  the  last  supper  of 
all.  But  at  this  present  supper  now  spread  before 
us  He  gives  both  His  disciples  and  us  this  new 
commandment  of  His  also.  "  When  thou  art 
bidden  of  any  man  to  a  wedding,  go  and  sit  down 
in  the  lowest  room."  And  then,  like  the  Shorter 
Catechism,  He  annexes  His  reasons,  which,  when 
drawn  out,  are  such  as  these.  No  man  can  ever  say 
to  you.  Give  this  man  place ;  no  man  can  ever  say 
to  you.  Sit  lo\ver  down,  if  you  have  already  chosen 
for  yourself  the  lowest  seat.  No  man  can  humiliate 
you  and  clothe  you  with  shame  if  you  are  always 
clothed  with  humility.  But  on  the  other  hand,  if 
you  ai'p  always  and  everywhere  exalting  yourself: 


THE  GUEST  IN  THE  LOWEST  ROOM       127 

if  you  are  always  scheming  for  yourself,  and  are 
always  choosing  out  the  best  seats  for  yourself, 
depend  upon  it  you  are  laying  up  shame  and 
humiliation  for  yourself.  If  you  are  constantly 
pluming  yourself  on  your  own  performances,  and 
on  your  high  deservings  of  praise  and  what  not 
at  all  men's  hands,  depend  you  upon  it  your 
humiliation  will  not  tarry.  You  will  be  dis- 
appointed, superseded,  over-looked,  over-stepped, 
and  over-ridden,  absolutely  every  day.  It  will 
seem  to  you,  and  not  without  good  grounds,  as  if 
all  men  were  in  one  plot  against  you,  for  so  they 
are.  If  they  can  help  it,  you  shall  with  shame  begin 
to  take  the  lowest  room.  But  if  I  were  you,  I 
would  outwit  them.  I  would  lay  this  wise  com- 
mandment of  our  Lord's  to  my  heart  if  I  were 
you,  till  I  had  completely  outwitted  them.  When 
you  are  next  bidden  to  anything,  begin  to  sit  down 
in  the  lowest  room ;  yes,  in  the  very  lowest  room 
you  can  get.  Begin  at  once  to  humble  yourself 
everywhere,  and  in  everything.  Put  on  the  sack- 
cloth of  humility  immediately  and  always.  Set  less 
and  less  store  by  your  own  talents,  attainments, 
performances,  and  deserts ;  and  set  more  and  more 
store  by  all  other  men's  talents,  deserts,  and  per- 
formances. Pooh-pooh  your  own  heart  when  it 
says  to  you, — What  a  grand  man  you  are  !  When 
it  says  to  you, — What  a  grand  sermon  that  is  you 
have  just  preached !  What  a  grand  book  that  is 
you  have  just  published !  What  a  grand  run  in 
the  race-course  that  was  with  all  men's  eyes  upon 
you !     And   what  a  grand  leap  that  was.  leaving 


128  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 

all  your  rivals  far  behind  you  !  Turn  upon  your 
pufted-up  heart  and  tell  it  that  nobody  is  thinking 
about  your  grand  sermons,  or  your  grand  books,  or 
your  grand  runs,  or  your  grand  leaps;  nobody  but 
yourself.  Only,  all  your  competitors  in  preaching 
and  in  leaping,  they,  indeed,  are  thinking  almost 
as  much,  and  almost  as  often,  about  you  as  you 
are  about  yourself.  Only,  in  a  very  different  way. 
And  in  a  way  that,  if  you  knew  it,  would  make  you 
take  down  your  top-sail,  as  Samuel  Rutherford  says. 
My  friends,  expect  notliing  for  yourselves  and  you 
will  not  be  disappointed ;  demand  nothing  for 
yourselves  and  you  will  be  continually  surprised 
how  praise  and  promotion  will  pour  in  upon  you, 
and  that  at  the  most  unexpected  times  and  from 
the  most  unexpected  people.  How  does  Jupiter 
occupy  himself  on  Olympus  ?  asked  Chilo  at  ^sop. 
In  humbling  the  high,  was  ^sop's  answer,  and  in 
lifting  up  the  low.  Just  as  Peter  has  it,  who  was 
present  at  that  supper-table.  "  Yea,  all  of  you  be 
clothed  with  humility ;  for  God  resisteth  the 
proud,  and  giveth  grace  to  the  humble.'" 

Only,  there  is  humility  and  humility.  And  the 
best  kind  of  humility  is  that  kind  which  Thomas 
Shepard,  so  far  as  I  know,  was  the  first  to  call 
"  evangelical  humility."  Jonathan  Edwards  has 
now  made  this  borrowed  phrase  famous  in  some  of 
the  golden  pages  of  his  Relig'ious  Affections.  Hear 
then,  what  this  master  in  Israel  says: — "Evangelical 
humility  is  the  sense  that  a  Christian  man  has  of 
his  own  utter  insufficiency,  utter  despicableness, 
and  utter  odiousness ;  with  an  always  answerable 


THE  GUEST  IN  THE  LOWEST  ROOM      129 

frame  of  heart.  This  humility  is  peculiar  to  the 
true  saints.  It  arises  from  the  spirit  of  God  im- 
planting and  exercising  supernatural  and  divine 
principles :  and  it  is  accompanied  with  a  sense  of 
the  transcendent  beauty  of  divine  things.  And 
then,  God's  true  saints  all  more  or  less  see  their 
own  odiousness  on  account  of  sin,  and  the  exceed- 
ingly hateful  nature  of  all  sin.  The  very  essence 
of  evangelical  humility  consists  in  such  humility  as 
becomes  a  man  in  himself  exceeding  sinful  but  now 
under  a  dispensation  of  grace.  It  consists  in  a 
mean  esteem  of  himself,  as  in  himself  nothing,  and 
altogether  contemptible  and  odious.  This  indeed 
is  the  greatest  and  the  most  essential  thing  in  true 
religion."  My  brethren,  you  will  not  be  long 
troubled  with  that  guest  choosing  out  the  chief 
rooms  for  himself.  If  you  would  have  all  the  chief 
rooms  to  yourselves,  and  to  your  children,  frequent 
those  feasts,  and  engineer  to  get  your  children 
invited  to  those  feasts,  to  which  none  but  Thomas 
Shepard's  disciples  are  invited. 

Parents  are  terribly  perplexed  at  present  as  to 
what  is  the  proper  education  for  their  children ; 
and  for  their  sons  especially.  Shall  they  take  the 
ancient  or  the  modern  side  of  the  University  ? 
Shall  it  be  the  classics,  and  almost  nothing  else,  as 
was  the  old  way  ?  Or  shall  it  be  a  commercial 
education  almost  exclusively .?  And  one  adviser 
advises  the  one  way,  and  another  adviser  advises 
the  other  way,  till  many  anxious  parents  are  driven 
distracted.  Whichever  side  you  determine  on,  be 
sure  that  your  sons  take  Moral  Philosophy  in  the 

I 


130  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

curriculum.  If  it  is  Latin  and  Greek,  and  the  old 
culture,  that  you  decide  on,  he  sure  they  take 
yEsop  with  it  as  above.  Or  if  it  is  a  military  or  a 
commercial  education,  still  take  iEsop  as  above, 
even  if  it  is  only  in  translation.  Whether  they  are 
to  be  men  of  all  literature,  or  men  of  one  book 
only,  and  that  the  ledger,  see  to  it  that  they  mix 
all  their  books  with  humility.  That  will  make 
your  sons  true  gentlemen,  whichever  side  they  take 
in  education.  And  that  will  make  your  daughters 
true  ladies,  whatever  school  and  college,  whatever 
course  you  decide  on  for  them.  Housewifery,  like 
their  mothers  and  their  grandmothers,  or  a  degree, 
like  their  fathers  and  their  brothers.  I  will  not 
quarrel  with  your  choice  for  them  if  only  you  mix 
it  well  with  humility.  If  your  sons  have  the  head 
and  the  heart  to  read  Shepard  and  Edwards — and 
it  will  need  all  the  head  and  all  the  heart  you  can 
give  them  to  read  those  two  masters — then  I  will 
prophesy  your  sons'  prosperity  from  either  culture  ; 
the  ancient  or  the  modern.  And  if  you  bring  up 
your  daughters  to  respect  the  servants  and  to  share 
their  work ;  to  rise  early  in  the  morning,  to  make 
their  own  beds,  to  decorate  their  own  rooms,  and 
to  brush  their  own  boots,  then  they  can  add  a 
University  degree  to  that  with  the  applause  of  all 
men,  both  young  and  old.  If  they  are  but  popular 
downstairs,  I  will  read  their  names  in  the  Scotsman 
and  the  Times  with  a  pride  almost  as  much  as  your 
own.  Only  begin  their  education  while  they  are 
yet  infants ;  or,  at  any  rate,  little  childien.  It  so 
happens  that  j  ust  as  I  am  composing  these  lines  for 


THE  GUEST  IN  THE  LOWEST  ROOM      131 

you  I  have  come  in  our  morning  worship  on  this 
children's  hymn  for  your  children  and  mine : — 

Day  by  day  the  little  daisy 

Looks  up  with  its  yellow  eye. 
Never  murmurs,  never  wishes 

It  were  hanging  up  on  high. 

And  the  air  is  just  as  pleasant. 

And  as  bright  the  sunny  sky. 
To  the  daisy  on  the  footpath 

As  to  flowers  that  bloom  on  high. 

God  has  given  to  each  his  station  ; 

Some  have  riches  and  high  place, 
Some  have  lowly  homes  and  labours ; 

All  may  have  His  precious  grace. 

"  All  our  humility  on  earth  will  come  to  its  head 
in  heaven,"  says  Samuel  Rutherford.  Till  the  only 
difficulty  at  the  Marriage  Supper  of  the  Lamb  will 
be  to  get  the  chief  rooms  at  that  Supper  to  be  filled 
with  their  proper  guests.  It  will  be  somewhat 
like  that  Highland  Communion  at  which  I  was 
present.  Friends,  come  up  higher !  the  minister 
pled  with  his  people.  But  with  all  his  authority,  and 
with  all  his  promises  and  pleas,  he  could  not  over- 
come his  people's  shame  and  pain  of  heart  that  day. 
And  all  the  assisting  minister  could  do,  with  all  his 
fresh  promises  and  pleas  and  encouragements,  it 
was  long  before  the  Lord's  Table  was  even  half 
filled  that  day.  And  so,  somewhat,  will  it  be  with 
ourselves  at  the  Lord's  Table  above.  Our  eyes  will 
seek  for  them,  and,  as  soon  as  we  enter  the  supper- 
room,  we  will  see  men  and  women  already  seated 


132  OUR  LORD  S  CHARACTERS 

there,  the  sight  of  whom  will  so  awaken  and  inflame 
our  old  sin  and  shame,  that  we  will  turn  to  flee : 
only,  by  that  time,  escape  will  be  impossible,  for  the 
door  will  be  shut.  The  sight  of  the  Table  and  of 
Him  who  sits  at  the  head  of  the  Table,  and  of  some 
of  the  guests  already  in  their  seats  there,  and  a 
thousand  other  things,  will  all  rush  in  upon  us  till 
we  shall  fall  down  as  dead.  "  And  he  laid  His  right 
hand  upon  me,  saying  unto  me.  Fear  not :  I  am  the 
first  and  the  last.  I  am  He  that  liveth  and  was 
dead,  and,  behold,  I  am  alive  for  evermore.  Amen  : 
and  have  the  keys  of  hell  and  of  death."  Friend  ! 
He  will  say  to  us,  as  He  lifts  us  up  in  glory  as  He 
used  to  do  in  grace.  Friend  !  and  this  word  of  His 
will  at  once  revive  us.  And  we  will  sit  down  humbly 
just  where  He  seats  us.  No  one  else  will  have  taken 
our  place.  Wherever  at  His  Table  our  place  is  it 
will  be  oui's  alone,  and  no  stranger  will  intermeddle 
with  it.  And,  to  borrow  a  word  from  this  night's 
scripture,  it  will  be  with  shame  that  we  will  sit 
down  in  the  place  prepared  for  us.  Only,  it  will  be 
with  a  sweet,  holy,  heavenly,  blessed  and  beatific 
shame.  Friend !  He  will  say,  go  up  higher. 
Then  shalt  thou  have  worship  in  the  presence  of 
them  that  sit  at  meat  with  thee.  For  whosoever 
exalteth  himself  shall  be  abased ;  and  he  that 
humbleth  himself  shall  be  exalted. 


THE  BIDDEN  TO  THE  MARRIAGE      133 


XIV 

THE  BIDDEN  TO  THE  GREAT  MAR- 
RIAGE SUPPER  AND  SOME  OF  THEIR 
EXCUSES 

5OU  are  all  bidden  to  this  great  marriage 
supper.  The  invitations  sent  out  to 
our  marriage  suppers  have  to  be  hmited 
to  the  more  intimate  friends  of  the 
bride  and  the  bridegroom.  Our  largest 
houses  would  not  hold  the  half  of  the  friends  we 
would  like  to  see  with  us  on  such  happy  occasions. 
But  there  is  no  such  limitation  here.  You  are  all 
bidden  to  this  marriage.  And  the  only  li^nitation 
to-night  lies  entirely  with  yourselves.  What,  then, 
is  your  answer  to  be  to-night  ? 

This  is  a  most  extraordinary  marriage  and  mar- 
riage supper.  And  therefore  you  must  not  measure 
what  is  now  to  be  said  about  this  marriage  by  what 
you  have  seen  or  heard  of  the  marriages  of  this 
world.  For  there  are  far  better  worlds  than  this 
world,  and  there  are  far  better  marriages  than  this 
world  has  ever  seen.  Indeed,  this  marriage  that  is 
in  your  offer  to-night  is  the  only  real  and  true  and 
perfect  marriage  that  has  ever  been  made  in  this 


134  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

or  in  any  other  world,  or  that  ever  will  be  made. 
You  have  been  dreaming  about  marriages  all  your 
days,  but  a  marriage  like  this  has  never  entered 
your  most  extravagant  imaginations.  For  this  is 
nothing  less  than  the  marriage  of  the  Eternal  Son 
of  God  with  your  own  immortal  soul.  You,  sitting 
there,  are  the  bride,  and  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Bride- 
groom. And  the  Father  of  the  Bridegroom  has 
His  heart  so  much  set  upon  this  marriage  that  he 
has  sent  His  servant  to-night  to  say  to  you  that 
all  things  are  now  ready.  Some  of  our  marriages 
take  a  long  time  to  get  all  things  ready.  And  this 
great  marriage  has  not  by  any  means  been  made 
ready  in  a  day.  This  marriage  was  actually  pro- 
posed and  planned  for  and  the  preparations  began 
to  be  made  for  it  before  the  foundations  of  this 
world  were  laid.  You  like  to  read  and  hear  about 
marriages,  and  the  arranging  of  marriages,  and  how 
the  course  of  true  love  did,  or  did  not,  run  smooth. 
Well,  I,  like  you,  have  read  many  love  romances  in 
my  day,  and  have  delighted  in  them  in  my  day ; 
but  this  great  love,  and  the  sometimes  smooth,  and 
sometimes  stormy,  course  it  has  had  to  run,  quite 
out  of  sight  eclipses  all  other  romances  to  me  now. 
So  much  so,  that  I  have  for  long  wholly  given  up 
reading  anything  else  except  about  this  everlasting 
love.  But  this  is  the  immediate  and  the  main  point 
that  all  things  are  ready  now.  All  things  that  the 
bride  needs  to  make  herself  ready  are  ready  now. 
And  all  things  that  the  Bridegroom  needs  are  ready 
now.  The  Father  is  ready  to  receive  you.  The 
Son  stands  ready  to  be  for  ever  united  to  you,  and 


THE  BIDDEN  TO  THE  MARRIAGE       135 

to  have  you  united  to  Him,  And  the  Holy  Ghost 
stands  beside  the  Son  ready,  and  book  in  hand  like 
the  minister,  to  pronounce  you  the  Lamb's  wife. 
And  it  only  remains  for  you  to  say  yes,  or  no.  It 
only  remains  for  you  to  say  that  your  heart  within 
you  is  as  the  chariots  of  Amminadib  in  the  Song 
of  Solomon,  and  your  marriage  is  consummated,  or 
will  be  consummated  immediately. 

This  very  same  message  and  invitation  was  once 
sent  to  a  congregation  of  people  just  like  yourselves ; 
and  they  all,  with  one  consent,  began  to  make 
excuse.  We  can  scarcely  believe  it  about  them, 
but  it  must  be  true,  else  it  would  not  be  recorded 
against  them  to  all  time,  as  it  is  here  recorded. 
Come,  said  the  servant  to  those  that  were  bidden  : 
Come,  for  all  things  are  now  ready.  But  they  all, 
with  one  consent,  began  to  make  excuse.  The  first 
said  unto  the  servant,  I  have  bought  a  piece  of 
ground,  and  I  must  needs  go  to  see  it ;  I  pray  thee 
have  me  excused.  And  another  said,  I  have  bought 
five  yoke  of  oxen,  and  I  go  to  prove  tJiem ;  I  pray 
thee  have  me  excused.  And  another  said,  I  have 
married  a  wife,  and  therefore  I  cannot  come.  You 
are  sometimes  like  that  yourselves  among  the  dinner 
and  supper  invitations  of  our  own  city.  You  hear 
with  apprehension  sometimes  of  certain  dinners  and 
suppers  that  are  soon  to  come  on.  Your  hearts 
are  not  in  those  intended  entertainments,  and  you 
would  give  anything  not  to  be  invited  to  them. 
And  when  you  are  invited  you  are  at  your  wits'  end 
how  to  answer  so  as  not  to  give  an  unpardonable 
offence.     You  sit  at  your  desk  and  you  bite  your 


136  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

pen  over  your  excessively  difficult  answer.  You 
try  one  form  of  answer  and  you  tear  it  up ;  the  lie 
is  too  transparent.  '  Thank  you,'  you  at  labt  answer, 
'but  I  have  an  engagement  already  on  my  hands 
for  that  very  evening.  I  have  done  my  best  to  get 
out  of  it,  but  it  is  impossible.'  Or  you  try  this — 
A  friend  of  yours,  that  you  have  not  seen  for  many 
years,  has  offered  you  a  visit  on  that  evening  on  his 
way  througli  the  city  and  you  cannot  put  him  off; 
or,  you  have  a  most  important  meeting  down  for 
that  evening  and  for  that  hour,  at  which,  indeed, 
you  are  already  advertised  to  take  the  chair. 
'Accept  my  most  sincere  apology,'  you  add,  'and 
convey  my  best  respects  to  your  lionoured  guest.' 
The  dinner  belongs  to  another  political,  or  ecclesi- 
astical, or  civic,  party  than  that  to  which  you 
belong.  There  are  old  sores  in  your  mind  against 
your  proposed  host  as  well  as  against  some  of  the 
guests  who  are  sure  to  be  there.  In  short,  you 
cannot  and  you  will  not  go.  Even  at  the  risk  of 
your  absence  being  misunderstood,  and  taken  in  ill 
part,  you  will  not  go.  '  We  will  not  trouble  him 
again,'  say  the  host  and  the  hostess  to  one  another 
over  your  transparent  subterfuge;  'he  will  come 
the  next  time  he  is  asked  to  any  dinner  of  ours.' 

Those  were  clever  enough  excuses  that  your 
predecessors  in  Israel  made.  Indeed,  they  were 
entirely  true  excuses,  rather  than  merely  clever. 
For  the  real  truth  was  they  had  no  heart  for  that 
invitation.  All  their  treasure,  and  consequently 
all  their  heart,  was  elsewhere.  The  first  man's 
treasure    was   his   newly-bought   piece   of  ground. 


THE  BIDDEN  TO  THE  MARRIAGE       137 

The  second  man's  treasure  was  his  five  yoke  of  oxen. 
While  the  third  man  had  the  best  treasure  and  the 
best  excuse  of  all.  For  he  had  a  young  wife  at 
home,  and  the  dinner  was  never  dressed  that  would 
draw  him  away  from  her  side  so  soon.  Now  what 
is  your  excuse  to-night  ?  You  have  an  excuse  that 
you  have  sent  up  as  your  answer  before  now ;  often 
before  now.  Is  it  to  be  the  same  excuse  and  answer 
to-night  again  ?  It  is  as  if  an  angel  had  come 
straight  from  heaven  to  you  with  an  invitation 
addressed  to  you  in  his  hand.  There  he  is,  standing 
in  the  passage  at  the  end  of  your  pew.  Yes,  there  he 
is.  It  is  not  the  first  time  I  have  seen  him  standing 
impatiently  there.  But  to-night  it  may  be  the  last 
time.  When  he  goes  home  to-night  empty  again 
his  Master  may  well  be  so  angry  this  time  that  He 
may  swear  that  your  invitations  shall  be  no  longer. 
'  He  is  joined  to  his  ground,  and  to  his  oxen,  and 
to  his  wife — let  him  alone.""  And,  then,  what  will  all 
these  things  do  for  you  against  the  anger  of  Almighty 
God,  and  against  the  wrath  of  the  Lamb  ?  Whereas, 
say  Yes !  and  all  things  are  yours,  and  you  are 
His,  and  He  is  God's.  Wait  one  moment,  then,  O 
impatient  angel :  wait,  just  wait  one  moment !  And 
then  speed  up  with  your  answer  to  your  Lord. 

But  even  that  sufficient  danger  and  disaster  is  not 
all.  There  are  more  men  involved  in  your  salvation 
or  damnation  than  yourselves.  Your  ministers  are 
almost  as  much  involved  as  you  are.  O  light-hearted 
students,  go  and  make  your  piece  of  bread  in  some 
much  safer  calling.  For  God  lays  this  same  awful 
order  on    all    His   ministers, — Go,   He    says,  and 


138  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

compel  them  to  come  in.  Compel  is  His  very  word. 
That  is  your  minister's  ordination  oath,  and  if 
you  are  lost:  if  you  go  on  to  the  end  making 
excuses  and  refusals,  your  lost  eternity  will  be  at 
your  minister's  door,  as  well  as  at  your  own.  Your 
minister  must  compel  you  therefore,  if  he  is  not 
to  be  involved  in  your  ruin.  'Did  you  do  all  that 
it  was  commanded  you  to  do  ?' — it  will  be  demanded 
of  him  on  that  day  !  '  You  knew  quite  well  that 
that  man  there,  and  that  woman  there,  were  no 
more  saved  than  were  the  seats  they  sat  on,  and 
what  did  you  do  ?  Did  you  let  them  fall  asleep 
while  you  delivered  my  message  to  them  ?  Did 
you  tell  them  plainly  how  it  would  end  with  them  ? 
Or  were  you  afraid  to  offend  them,  and  lose  their 
approval  and  their  patronage?  Did  you  demand 
of  them  every  Sabbath  day  what  provision  they 
had  made  against  death  and  judgment?  Did  you 
preach  every  sermon  of  yours  as  if  it  were  your  last 
and  their  last  ?  And  as  if  you  and  they  might  be 
summoned  before  the  great  white  throne  at  the  end 
of  your  sermon  ?  Did  you  compel  them  to  see  that 
there  were  only  two  things  possible  before  them — 
the  right  hand  or  the  left :  heaven  or  hell :  the 
wrath  of  the  Lamb,  or  His  everlasting  love  ?  If 
you  did  all  that,  then  you  are  clear  of  their  blood. 
But  if  you  did  not  do  all  that,  and  that  continually, 
you  are  no  minister  of  mine.*'  O  men  and  women ! 
Be  not  so  inhuman  as  to  drag  down  your  minister 
with  yourselves.  Say,  at  any  rate,  to  God's  angel 
that  your  minister  is  not  to  blame.  Say  to  him 
that  your  minister  did  all  that  mortal  man  could 


THE  BIDDEN  TO  THE  MARRIAGE       139 

do.  Say  to  him  that  your  minister's  hands  are 
pure  of  your  blood,  and  that  you  alone  are  without 
excuse. 

This  parable,  it  is  much  to  be  feared,  will  have 
a  very  visible  fulfilment  in  this  house  during  the 
next  fortnight.  For  this  day  fortnight  the  marriage 
supper  of  the  Lamb  is  to  be  made  ready  here. 
And  from  to-night  onward  this  call  will  go  forth 
to  all  this  congregation, — The  Lord's  Supper  is 
again  made  ready.  Come  and  partake  of  it.  Pre- 
pare yourselves  in  the  ways  appointed  you,  and 
then  come  to  the  Lord's  Table.  But  when  the  two 
days  of  special  preparation  are  come,  what  will  we 
see  here  ?  We  will  see  the  church  on  the  Thursday 
evening,  and  on  the  Saturday  afternoon,  not  one- 
fourth  full :  till  your  ministers  will  be  ashamed 
to  have  brought  two  of  God's  servants  to  preach  to 
your  empty  pews.  So  many  intending  communi- 
cants will,  with  one  consent,  begin  to  make  excuse. 
One  will  say.  The  hour  is  so  late.  Another  will 
say,  The  weather  is  still  so  unsettled.  Another 
will  say,  Those  services  are  getting  antiquated  and 
out  of  date  and  so  few  people  attend  them.  Another 
will  say.  To  tell  the  truth  I  had  wholly  forgotten 
about  the  communion,  and  my  wife  and  I  have  a 
dinner-party  in  our  house  that  evening.  Another 
will  say.  The  young  people  are  at  their  lessons  on 
Thursday  night,  and  they  need  fresh  air  on  Saturday 
afternoon,  and  are  away  out  of  the  town  on  their 
bicycles.  And  then  the  ministers  and  the  elders 
will  get  such  a  refreshment  and  such  a  preparation 
from  those  two  services  that  they  will  look  round 


140  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

and  will  say  to  themselves : — Oh,  why  were  so  and  so 
not  here?  Wiiat  a  blessing  they  have  lost.  AVhat 
can  they  have  got  elsewhere  to  make  up  to  them 
for  the  loss  of  such  a  preparation-service  as  this  has 
been  ?  And  then  those  who  so  excused  themselves 
on  the  Thursday  and  the  Saturday  will  come  up 
so  unprepared  on  tlie  Sabbath  that  when  the  King 
comes  in  to  see  the  guests  it  will  be  impossible  for 
Him  to  wink  at  the  state  of  matters  between  Him 
and  many  who  will  intrude  themselves  that  day. 
Till  in  very  fait!ifulness  He  will  say  to  them,  Friend, 
how  earnest  thou  in  hither  not  having  a  wedding 
garment .''  But  be  not  speechless  to-night.  Come 
to-night.  Say  yes  to-night.  For  all  things  are 
now  ready,  wedding  garment  and  all. 


WITHOUT  A  WEDDING  GARMENT      141 


XV 

THE  MAN  WHO  HAD  NOT  ON  A 
WEDDING  GARMENT 

[UPPOSE  this.  Suppose  you  were  com- 
manded to  sup  with  King  Edward 
the  Seventh  on  this  day  week.  Then 
what  else  than  that  command  would 
you  think  about  all  the  intervening 
six  days  and  six  nights  ?  I  feel  sure  you  would 
think  about  nothing  else.  The  great  invitation, 
and  the  coming  supper  in  the  king's  palace,  would 
never  be  out  of  your  thoughts  for  a  moment.  You 
would  discourse  about  your  high  honour  all  day, 
and  you  would  dream  about  it  all  night.  But  at 
the  same  time,  you  would  rejoice  at  the  prospect 
with  trembling.  And  you  would  do  this.  You 
would  seek  out  those  in  this  city  who  had  some- 
times been  at  court.  You  would  apply  to  those 
ministers,  or  other  highly  honoured  men,  who  had 
dined  or  supped  with  the  late  Queen,  his  Majesty's 
mother,  and  you  would  beseech  them  to  tell  you  all 
about  the  palace  and  its  royal  rules  and  regulations. 
You    would    interrogate   them   about   a   thousand 


142  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

things,  from  the  way  in  which  you  should  reply  to 
such  a  command,  down  till  you  were  safely  back 
again  in  your  own  house.  You  would  be  in  such 
mortal  terror  lest  in  your  inexperience  and  ignorance 
you  should  fall  into  some  awful  mistake.  You  have 
never  been  much  in  good  society,  not  to  say  in  such 
society  as  a  crowned  head  keeps,  and  it  would  not 
be  to  be  wondered  at  if  you  scarcely  slept  with 
anxiety  till  it  was  all  over  and  you  were  safely  home 
again.  And  if  there  was  any  book  of  palace  etiquette 
and  court  ceremonial  to  be  had  for  love  or  money, 
you  would  sit  up  all  night  over  it ;  you  would  set 
your  very  Bible  aside  night  after  night  in  order  to 
give  all  your  mind  to  the  Court  Guide.  Your  Bible 
could  wait,  but  not  your  preparation  for  the  great 
event  of  your  life.  And  if  in  studying  its  directions 
you  came  on  any  expressions  and  descriptions  you 
did  not  understand,  you  would  go  back  again  to 
the  king''s  chaplain  rather  than  risk  the  smallest 
misunderstanding  or  mistake.  And  if  you  could 
accuse  yourself  of  neglecting  the  very  utmost 
precaution,  and  thus  fell  into  some  disgraceful 
blunder  at  court,  you  would  never  forget  it,  and 
you  would  never  forgive  yourself,  to  your  dying  day. 
And  who  would  blame  you  for  all  that  solicitude  ? 
Who  would  say  that  you  were  anxious  over  much.? 
We  would  all  envy  you  for  your  high  honour,  but 
we  would  all  be  thankful  that  we  had  not  to  go 
through  your  ordeal.  And  as  often  as  we  thought 
of  your  certainty  to  make  some  terrible  mistake,  we 
would  say  to  ourselves — Better  him  than  me. 

Intending  communicants  !     Your  own  hearts  have 


WITHOUT  A  WEDDING  GARMENT       148 

already  interpreted  to  you  what  I  have  been  driving 
at  all  this  time.  For  this  day  seven-night  you  are 
all  commanded  to  be  ready  to  present  yourselves 
before  your  Lord  in  His  Father's  house.  Now 
what  are  you  intending  to  do  all  this  week  with  a 
view  to  the  Lord's  Supper.?  With  whom  do  you 
intend  to  take  counsel  ?  Do  you  know,  in  all  your 
circle  of  acquaintances,  any  one  you  feel  sure  is  at 
home  in  such  matters  ?  What  books  will  you  read 
this  week,  and  what  books  will  you  judge  it 
impertinent,  and  unseasonable,  and  unbecoming,  to 
read  this  week  ?  How  do  you  intend  to  lay  out 
your  nights  especially .?  In  short,  what  steps  do 
you  intend  to  take  to  secure  and  guard  yourself 
against  some  awful  slip  or  oversight  when  you  are 
ushered  into  the  King's  presence  ?  Have  you  any 
plan .?  Have  you  any  programme  ?  Six  days  and 
six  nights  look  a  long  time  in  which  to  prepare. 
But  they  will  all  be  past  and  gone  before  you 
know  where  you  are.  For  one  thing,  I  have  a 
great  faith  myself  in  the  proper  books.  I  shall 
owe  my  own  soul,  if  it  is  saved  at  last,  to  the 
proper  books.  And  if  your  soul  is  lost  at  last 
that  catastrophe  will  be  accounted  for  largely  by 
your  persistent  reading  of  unseasonable  and  unbe- 
coming books,  and  especially  in  the  night-watches 
of  the  communion  week.  Some  intending  com- 
municants will  do  something  like  this.  To-morrow 
night  they  will  take  time  and  will  read  again  all 
about  the  institution  of  the  Passover  in  Israel,  and 
they  will  apply  all  the  lessons  of  the  Passover  to 
their  own   hearts,  and   to   their   own   lintels   and 


144  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

side-posts.  On  Tuesday  night  if  you  went  in  on 
them  late  you  would  find  them  deep  in  the  Fifty- 
first  Psalm.  And  on  Wednesday  night  deep  in 
the  Fifty-third  of  Isaiah.  On  Thursday  we  used 
to  have  all  the  shops  shut,  and  all  the  churches 
open;  and  we  still  have  our  communion  books,  if 
we  choose,  that  no  one  can  shut  as  they  have  shut 
the  churches.  And  all  Thursday  night  they  will 
be  still  deeper  in  the  arrest  and  the  trial  and  the 
cross  of  their  Redeemer.  What  else,  in  the  name 
of  sin  and  salva'Jon,  would  you  expect  to  find  them 
reading  on  such  a  night  and  in  such  a  week !  And 
all  the  week  they  will  have  among  their  choicest 
books  some  classic  on  the  communion,  say  like 
Robert  Bruce,  and  they  will  work  their  soul-saving 
way  through  that  great  book  again.  Robert  Bruce's 
book  is  not  in  the  circulating  library,  and  it  is  too 
dear  for  you  who  are  laymen  to  be  expected  to  buy 
it.  But  if  there  is  any  divinity  student  here  who 
hopes  one  day  to  be  a  good  minister  of  Jesus  Christ, 
let  him  get  his  hands  somehow  or  other  on  Bruce 
before  to-morrow  night,  and  master  one  of  "  that 
stately  Presbyterian  divine's"  sermons  on  the  Sacra- 
ment every  night  all  the  week.  I  have  not  read 
Bruce  so  often,  I  am  ashamed  to  say,  as  Jowett  had 
read  Boswell.  But  I  read  him  for  the  first  time 
forty  years  ago,  and  I  read  him  again  last  week. 
And  in  the  strength  of  many  readings  of  that  great 
Edinburgh  preacher  I  will  venture  this  prophecy 
that  if  you  begin  Bruce  at  this  communion,  you 
will  still  be  reading  him  forty  years  after  this,  and 
you  will  be  liking  him  better  and  better  at  every 


WITHOUT  A  WEDDING  GARMENT       145 

returning  communion    in    your   ministry, — a   sure 
mark  of  a  masterpiece. 

But  with  all  that,  you  must  not  sit  at  home  and 
read  your  Bible  and  Bruce  on  the  Sacraments  all 
the  week,  and  do  nothing  else.  "Therefore  we 
must,"  says  Jeremy  Taylor,  "  before  every  com- 
munion especially,  remember  what  differences  or 
jealousies  are  between  us  and  any  one  else,  and 
recompose  all  such  disunions,  and  cause  right 
understandings  between  each  other.  Offering  to 
satisfy  whom  we  have  injured,  and  to  forgive  those 
who  have  injured  us."  And  so  on,  in  his  heart- 
searching  and  eloquent  treatise.  As  for  instance. 
One  of  our  own  elders  on  the  Sabbath  before  one 
communion  heard  a  sermon  on  the  text,  "Leave 
there  thy  gift  before  the  altar,  and  go  thy  way : 
first  be  reconciled  to  thy  brother,  and  then  come 
and  offer  thy  gift."  Now  that  elder  had  long  ago 
had  a  miserable  quarrel  with  a  man  in  the  same 
profession  as  his  own,  and  whose  office  was  in  the 
same  street  as  his  own.  And  on  the  Monday 
before  the  communion,  as  if  it  were  to-morrow,  he 
left  his  own  office- door  and  crossed  the  street  and 
rang  his  enemy's  bell.  He  felt,  as  he  told  me  him- 
self, that  he  would  almost  as  soon  have  faced  a 
lighted  cannon  as  rung  that  bell.  But  he  did  it. 
And  when  he  stood  before  his  old  foe  he  did  not 
speak.  He  only  held  out  his  hand.  The  two 
estranged  men  looked  at  one  another.  They  shook 
hands  and  parted  without  words.  But  a  load  of 
anger  and  hatred  and  wickedness  that  had  lain  like 
a  mill-stone  on  both  their  hearts  was  from  that 


146  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 

moment  removed.  And  the  two  men  came  to  the 
table  next  Sabbath  reconciled  to  God  and  to 
one  another.  Will  you  do  that  same  prepaiatory 
act  to-morrow  forenoon.?  Or  still  better,  will  you 
do  it  to-night  on  your  way  home  from  the  House 
of  God  ? 

And  then  when  the  communion  day  dawns  this 
day  week,  rise  early.  Be  like  Moses  that  morning 
when  he  was  hidden  in  the  cleft  rock,  and  when 
he  first  heard  the  Name  of  the  Lord.  And  have 
something  suitable  in  your  mind  the  last  thing  on 
Saturday  night  that  you  are  to  say  the  first  thing 
on  Sabbath  morning.  Have  this :  When  I  awake 
I  am  still  with  Thee.  Or  this :  I  shall  be  satisfied 
when  I  aw^ake  with  Tliy  likeness.  Or  this :  This 
is  the  day  the  Lord  hath  made.  Or  this :  He 
was  delivered  for  our  offences,  and  was  raised  again 
for  our  justification.  Or  this  :  Bless  the  Lord,  O 
my  soul,  and  forget  not  all  His  benefits.  And  then 
finish  up  with  this  :  I  will  take  the  cup  of  salvation, 
and  call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord.  And,  all  the 
morning  hoars,  let  your  mind  go  back  to  that  first 
Lord's  day  morning.  Think  you  see  Mary  Mag- 
dalene while  it  is  yet  dark.  Think  you  hear  what 
she  says  to  her  Risen  Lord,  and  what  He  says  to 
her.  Go  through  their  dialogue  with  them.  And 
open  and  read  the  journey  to  Emmaus,  and  think 
you  are  one  of  them,  till  your  heart  burns  within 
you.  And  be  up  here  in  good  time.  We  will  have 
the  doors  open  in  good  time.  Come  so  as  to  have 
a  quiet  half-hour  to  yourself.  Do  not  come  late 
and  agitated  with  getting  ready.      Have  a   good 


WITHOUT  A  WEDDING  GARMENT       147 

half-hour  to  read  and  think  and  pray.  And  enter 
at  once  into  the  stream  of  psalms  and  hymns  and 
spiritual  songs,  and  make  melody  in  your  heart  to 
the  Lord.  Follow  the  action-sermon  with  your 
whole  attention.  Miss  nothing  that  is  said.  I 
think  it  will  suit  you  next  Sabbath.  And  then  at 
the  table  rise  to  your  best  faith,  and  to  your  best 
love.  And  if  your  heart  has  resisted  all  the 
preparations  of  the  week  and  you  are  ready  to  sink 
into  the  earth  when  the  elders  bring  forward  the 
elements,  then  give  vent  to  your  heavy  heart  in  such 
ejaculations  as  this  :  I  am  not  worthy.  Holy  Lord. 
And  this :  Then  will  I  to  thine  altar  go.  And 
this  :  Just  as  I  am.  And  this  :  Cleft  for  me.  And 
then  when  the  King  comes  to  see  the  guests  He 
will  find  you  singing  in  your  heart  to  Him  and  to 
yourself  this  acceptable  song : — 

O  let  the  dead  now  hear  thy  voice  : 
Now  bid  thy  banished  ones  rejoice, — 
Their  beauty  this^  their  glorious  dress, 
Jesus,  Thy  blood  and  righteousness. 

And  then  take  a  moment  or  two  at  the  Table  to 
pray  for  those  who  are  as  dear  to  you  as  your  own 
soul.  For  those  you  love  as  Christ  has  loved  you. 
And,  after  your  own  flesh  and  blood,  then  for  those 
you  love  almost  as  much,  your  choicest  and  most 
select  friends.  And  wind  up  with  the  man  you 
were  reconciled  to  last  week.  For  that  is  the  best 
friendship,  and  that  is  the  surest  reconciliation, 
that  is  sanctified  and  sealed  at  the  Lord's  Table. 

And  then,  when  your  Saviour  says  to  you  after 
supper,  Know  you  what  I  have  done  to  you .?  you 


148  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

will  have  your  answer  ready.  My  blessed  Lord, 
you  will  say,  I  know  only  too  well  what  Thou  hast 
done  for  me.  I  doubt,  in  all  Thy  great  doings  for 
sinners,  if  ever  Thou  hast  done  for  mortal  man 
w^hat  Thou  hast  done  for  me.  Many  men  call 
themselves  the  chief  of  sinners  ;  but  I  know,  and 
Thou  knowest,  better  than  that.  If  I  do  not  know 
all  Thou  hast  done  for  me,  keep  the  full  knowledge 
of  it  back  till  I  am  able  to  bear  it.  For  I  am  not 
able  to  bear  any  more  to-day.  Oh  !  the  past,  the 
past !  you  will  cry  in  your  agony  of  remorse  mingled 
with  faith  and  love.  For  you  see  your  past  sins 
and  your  present  sinfulness  at  every  returning 
communion  blacker  and  blacker.  Yea,  Lord,  Thou 
hast  redeemed  me.  Thou  hast  substituted  Thyself 
for  me.  Thou  hast  borne  my  sins  in  Thine  own 
body  on  the  tree.  Thou  hast  come  after  me,  and 
Thou  hast  been  full  of  unparalleled  long-suffering 
with  me.  Thou  hast  endured  me  far  past  all  other 
men.  No  man  has  provoked  Thee  to  the  uttermost 
as  I  have  done.  And  yet,  you  will  say, — I  am  not 
in  hell,  but  at  the  Lord's  Table ! 

And  then,  with  all  that  possessing  your  heart,  you 
will  go  home  from  the  Lord's  Table  a  new  creature. 
You  will  go  home  at  peace  with  God  and  with  your 
own  conscience  through  the  sin-atonins;  death  of 
the  Son  of  God.  At  peace  also  with  all  men,  and 
full  of  love  and  prayer  for  all  men.  And  you  will 
henceforth  walk  with  a  far  more  perfect  heart  be- 
fore your  house  at  home.  And  you  will  henceforth 
possess  your  heart  with  a  holy  patience  among  all 
the  crooks  in  your  lot,  and  under  all  the  crosses 


WITHOUT  A  WEDDING  GARMENT       149 

that  God  sees  good  to  lay  upon  you.  And  amid 
all  these  things  you  will  henceforth  be  one  of  the 
most  watchful,  and  prayerful,  and  humble-minded, 
and  easy  to  live  with,  of  men.  A  miracle  to  your- 
self, and  a  wonder  to  many.  From  one  day  to 
another  living  for  nothing  else  so  much  as  to 
perfect  holiness  in  the  fear  of  God.  And  God 
every  day  more  and  more  perfecting  in  you  what 
He  has  begun  in  you,  till  the  day  of  Christ.  Till 
that  day,  that  is,  when  He  shall  come  in  to  see 
the  guests,  and  to  go  no  more  out. 


150 


OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 


XVI 


THE  PHARISEE 


R.  PUSEY  has  said  somewhere  that  a 
Pharisee  was  just  a  Jew  with  divine 
light  but  without  divine  love.  And 
that  saying  of  Dr.  Pusey's  is  just  the 
thirteenth  chapter  of  1st  Corinthians 
put  into  an  epigram.  Paul  was  once  a  Pharisee 
himself,  and  in  the  beginning  of  that  famous 
chapter  to  the  Corinthians  he  describes  himself  as 
a  Pharisee  to  perfection.  Every  finished  Pharisee, 
he  tells  us,  had  not  the  tongue  of  a  man  only,  but 
the  tongue  of  an  angel.  In  some  instances  the 
Pharisee  had  the  gift  of  prophecy  also,  and  could 
understand  all  mysteries,  and  all  knowledge. 
There  had  been  Pharisees  known  to  Paul  who 
had  a  faith  that  could  actually  remove  mountains. 
While  others  again  had  been  known  not  to  give 
a  tenth  only  of  all  that  they  possessed,  but  who 
positively  bestowed  all  their  goods  to  feed  the 
poor.  While  some  went  the  awful  length  of  giving 
their  very  bodies  to  be  burnt.  Our  hearts  bleed 
for  the  Pharisees.  Our  hearts  bleed  within  us  for 
men  who  could  do  and  endure  all  that,  and  yet 


THE  PHARISEE  151 

after  all  that  were  complete  castaways  from  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.  Who  then,  my  brethren,  can 
be  saved  ? 

In  answer  to  that  staggered  exclamation  of  ours, 
the  Apostle,  who  was  one  of  them  and  one  of  the 
very  best  of  them,  goes  on  to  accuse  the  Pharisees 
with  such  unanswerable  accusations  as  these.  With 
all  tliat,  says  the  Apostle,  the  finished  Pharisee 
was  wholly  without  love  in  his  heart.  To  come 
to  particulars  and  instances  of  that,  says  the 
Apostle.  The  true  Pharisee  entirely  lacked  large- 
heartedness  and  brotherly-kindness,  he  entirely 
lacked  appreciation  and  admiration  for  other  men. 
He  vaunted  about  himself  in  everything,  he  was 
puffed  up  with  himself  in  everything.  He  took 
no  pleasure  in  hearing  other  men  praised  for 
their  talents,  or  for  their  performances,  or  for 
their  conduct,  or  for  their  character.  The  true 
Pharisee  took  no  pleasure  in  the  pure  truth  about 
other  men.  Nay,  he  had  no  better  pleasure  than 
in  all  unjust  judgments  and  in  all  harsh  censures 
concerning  all  other  men.  When  he  heard  a  back- 
biter he  delighted  in  him,  and  lie  was  a  partaker 
with  busybodies.  He  wholly  lacked  liberality  of 
mind  and  hospitality  of  heart.  He  wholly  lacked 
trust  and  hope  and  love.  In  Dr.  Pusey's  short  and 
sharp  way  of  it  the  true  Pharisee  of  our  Lord's  day 
had  plenty  of  divine  light  in  his  head,  only  he  was 
wholly  lacking  in  divine  love  in  his  heart. 

But  let  us  go  back  again  upon  some  of  the 
Pharisee's  good  points.  And  that  not  only  for  his 
sake  but  for  our  own  sakes.     For  the  better  a  man 


152  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

the  Pharisee  was  the  more  solemnising  will  his 
history  and  his  character  and  his  condemnation  be 
to  us.  If  the  Pharisees  had  been  out  and  out  bad 
men,  their  condemnation  would  not  have  been  so 
startling  and  so  solemnising  to  us  as  it  is.  Now 
when  you  study  your  New  Testament  well  you  will 
see  how  much  there  is  to  be  said  in  behalf  of  the 
Pharisees.  Compared  with  the  Sadducees,  for  in- 
stance, the  Pharisees  were  men  of  a  high  religious 
character.  They  loved  the  Bible.  They  knew  the 
Bible  by  heart.  They  sanctified  the  Sabbath  day. 
None  of  you  better.  They  observed  the  Fast  days, 
and  all  the  other  church  ordinances,  with  what  we 
would  call  a  Puritan  scrupulosity  and  self-denial. 
In  short,  all  the  best  people  in  Israel  in  our  Lord's 
day  belonged  to  the  party  of  the  Pharisees. 

But,  with  all  that,  the  Pharisee  was  all  wrong  in 
his  heart.  The  true  Pharisee's  heart  was  not  a 
broken  heart ;  and  thus  it  was  that  nothing  was 
right  that  the  Pharisee  ever  said  or  did.  This 
sounds  a  hard  saying  that  nothing  was  right  he 
ever  said  or  did,  but  it  is  the  simple  truth.  In 
one  of  the  most  powerful  of  his  Roman  Catholic 
sermons,  entitled  "  The  Religion  of  the  Pharisee," 
Dr.  Newman  brings  out  this  about  a  Pharisee's  un- 
broken heart  in  his  own  incomparably  powerful  and 
impressive  way.  I  will  not  water  down  the  passage, 
but  will  give  you  the  enjoyment  and  the  profit  of 
it  just  as  it  stands.  "The  characteristic  mark  of 
the  religion  of  Christ,"  he  says,  "  is  a  continual  con- 
fession of  sin,  and  a  continual  prayer  for  mercy. 
What  is  peculiar  to  our  divine  faith,  as  to  Judaism 


THE  PHARISEE  153 

before  it,  is  this,  that  confession  of  sin  enters  into 
the  idea  of  its  highest  saintliness,  and  that  its 
pattern  worshippers,  and  the  very  heroes  of  its 
history,  are  only,  and  can  only  be,  and  cherish  in 
their  hearts,  the  everlasting  memory  that  they  are, 
and  carry  with  them  into  heaven  the  rapturous 
avowal  of  their  being,  restored  transgressors.  Such 
an  avowal  is  not  simply  wrung  from  the  lips  of  the 
neophyte,  or  of  the  lapsed ;  it  is  not  the  cry  of  the 
common  run  of  men  alone,  who  are  buffeting  with 
the  surge  of  temptation  in  the  wide  world ;  it  is  the 
hymn  of  saints,  it  is  the  triumphant  ode  sounding 
from  the  heavenly  harps  of  the  Blessed  before  His 
throne,  who  sing  to  their  Divine  Redeemer,  Thou 
wast  slain,  and  hast  redeemed  us  to  God  in  Thy 
blood,  out  of  every  tribe,  and  tongue,  and  people, 
and  nation.  And  what  is  to  the  saints  above  a 
theme  of  never-ending  thankfulness  is,  while  they 
are  yet  on  earth,  the  matter  of  their  perpetual 
humiliation.  Whatever  be  their  advance  in  the 
spiritual  life,  they  never  rise  from  their  knees,  they 
never  cease  to  beat  their  breasts.  So  it  was  with 
St.  Aloysius,  so  it  was  with  St.  Ignatius,  so  it  was 
with  St.  Philip  Neri  who,  when  some  one  praised  him, 
cried  out,  Begone !  I  am  a  devil,  and  not  a  saint ! 
And  who,  when  going  to  communicate,  would  pro- 
test before  his  Lord  that  he  was  good  for  nothing 
but  to  do  evil.  Such  utter  self-prostration,  I  say, 
is  the  very  badge  and  token  of  the  servant  of 
Christ;  and  this  indeed  is  conveyed  in  His  own 
words  when  He  says,  I  am  not  come  to  call  the 
righteous,  but  sinners  to  repentance.      And  it  is 


154  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

solemnly  recognised  and  inculcated  by  Him  in 
these  words :  Every  one  that  exalteth  himself 
shall  be  abased,  and  every  one  that  abaseth  him- 
self shall  be  exalted.  Could  contrast  be  greater 
than  between  that  and  this  ?  God  I  thank  Thee 
that  I  am  not  as  other  men  are,  or  even  as  this 
publican.  I  fast  twice  in  the  week,  I  give  tithes  of 
all  that  1  possess.  No ;  contrast  could  not  further 
go  than  that  between  the  true  penitent,  and  the 
true  Pharisee." 

The  very  name  that  the  Pharisee  took  to  himself 
condemned  him  to  his  face.  To  be  a  "  Pharisee"  was 
to  be  a  self-selected  and  a  separated  man.  Now, 
while  all  good  and  true  men  must  sometimes,  at 
whatever  cost,  separate  themselves  from  all  bad 
men,  and  from  all  bad  causes  among  bad  men,  at 
the  same  time,  all  good  and  true  men  will  make  the 
separation  with  great  humility,  and  will  make  it  as 
short  as  possible.  They  will  not  flaunt  abroad  their 
separation  like  a  flag.  They  will  not  lay  their 
separation  like  a  foundation  stone,  and  they  will 
not  build  their  church  upon  it.  Now  that  is  just 
what  this  true  Pharisee  was  doing  in  the  temple 
all  that  day  when  our  Lord  discovered  him  and 
denounced  him.  He  was  flaunting  his  flag  of 
superiority  and  separation  in  the  face  of  God  and 
man.  He  was  taking  up  his  stance  on  this 
standing-ground  before  God  and  man,  that  he  was 
so  much  better  than  all  other  men.  He  must  be 
correctly  reported,  and  if  he  is,  he  here  puts  all 
other  men  on  one  side,  and  separates  himself  from 
them  all,  and  thanks  God  for  it.     '  Stand  by,'  he 


THE  PHARISEE  155 

says  to  every  other  worshipper  in  the  temple. 
'  Come  not  near  to  me  ;  for  I  am  holier  than  thou.' 
You  have  the  true  Pharisee  in  all  ages,  and  out  of 
his  own  mouth,  in  that  speech  of  his.  You  have 
here  that  detestable  spirit  of  sectarianism  and 
schism  that  tore  to  pieces  the  Church  of  God  in 
Israel,  and  that  is  tearing  to  pieces  the  Church  of 
Christ  to  this  day.  Wherever  you  see  any  man, 
high  or  low,  great  or  small,  dwelling  continually  on 
his  superiority  over  all  other  men,  and  on  the 
superiority  of  his  church  over  all  other  churches, 
there  speaks  the  true  Pharisee.  Especially  when 
you  see  him  labouring  by  tongue  or  pen  or  purse 
to  keep  open  the  running  sores  in  the  Body  of 
Christ,  to  dwell  upon  those  sores,  to  exasperate 
them,  to  spread  them,  and  to  perpetuate  them. 

Now,  to  apply  all  that  to  the  topic  of  this  day — 
Christian  Unity — and  to  our  own  part  in  the  topic 
of  this  day. 

To  begin  with,  if  we  are  ever  to  take  any  true 
part  in  healing  the  grievous  wounds  in  the  Body 
of  Christ,  we  must  first  of  all  have  clean  hands 
ourselves ;  that  is  to  say,  we  must  have  clean 
hearts;  that  is  to  say,  we  must  have  broken, 
humble,  contrite  hearts.  Wliat  kind  of  a  healer 
would  he  be  who  came  to  you  to  bind  up  your 
wounds  with  his  hands  all  dropping  with  all 
manner  of  taint  or  infection  ?  You  would  say  to 
him,  Physician,  heal  thyself.  And  we  must  all 
look  to  ourselves  before  we  begin  to  bind  up  the 
Body  of  Christ.  It  is  our  universal  and  incurable 
self    )ve  and  self-righteousness  that  is  the  real  root 


156  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

of  all  our  sectarianisms  and  schisms  and  contro- 
versies, whether  those  controversies  are  carried  on 
by  the  tongue  or  by  the  pen  or  by  the  sword.  It 
is  our  pride  and  our  self-idolatry;  it  is  our  contempt 
and  scorn  of  all  other  men ;  it  is  not  our  love  of 
truth,  so  much  as  our  love  of  ourselves,  that  is  the 
real  cause  of  all  our  contentions  and  controversies. 
Paul  was  a  tremendous  Churchman  and  a  tremendous 
sectarian  controversialist  as  long  as  he  was  a 
Pharisee :  that  is  to  say,  as  long  as  his  heart  was 
unbroken.  But  look  at  him  after  he  was  born 
again  and  had  become  a  new  creature.  What  a 
contrast  to  his  former  self!  What  humility,  what 
condescension,  what  geniality,  what  courtesy,  what 
catholicity,  what  universal  loving-kindness;  in 
short,  and  in  modern  language,  what  a  Christian 
gentleman  !  Coleridge  says  that  while  Luther  was 
not  perhaps  such  a  perfect  gentleman  as  Paul,  he 
was  almost  as  great  a  genius.  And  Luther  gives 
us  a  taste  both  of  his  genius  and  of  his  gentlemanli- 
ness  also  in  what  he  says  about  Paul  after  Paul 
had  ceased  to  be  a  Pharisee.  "  Paul  was  gentle, 
and  tractable,  and  peaceable,  in  his  whole  Christian 
life.  Paul  was  meek,  and  courteous,  and  soft- 
spoken.  Paul  could  wink  at  other  men's  faults  and 
failings,  or  else  he  would  expound  them  to  the 
best.  Paul  could  be  well  contented  to  yield  up  his 
own  way,  and  to  give  place  and  honour  to  all  other 
men,  even  to  the  froward  and  the  intractable," 
So  speaks  of  Paul  the  most  Paul-like  man  of  the 
modern  world.  And  an  English  gentleman,  if -ver 
there  was  one,  has  said  of  Paul  in  more  than  one 


THE  PHARISEE  157 

inimitable  sermon  :  "  There  is  not  one  of  those 
refinements  and  delicacies  of  feeling  that  are  the 
result  of  advanced  civilisation,  nor  any  one  of 
those  proprieties  and  embellishments  of  conduct 
in  which  the  cultivated  intellect  delights,  but  Paul 
is  a  pattern  of  it.  And  that  in  the  midst  of  an 
assemblage  of  other  supernatural  excellences  which 
is  the  characteristic  endowment  of  apostles  and 
saints."  But  then  every  fibre  of  that,  if  you  search 
down  deep  enough  for  it,  you  will  find  it  all  rooted 
in  such  a  soil  as  this:  "Putting  me  into  the 
ministry :  who  was  before  a  blasphemer,  and  a 
persecutor,  and  injurious."  And  still  more  in  this : 
"  O  wretched  man  that  I  am  !  who  shall  deliver  me 
from  the  body  of  this  death  ? "  That  is  the  true 
temper  of  Church  unity,  even  as  the  Pharisee's 
prayer  is  the  true  temper  of  all  separation  and 
sectarianism  and  laceration  of  the  Body  of  Christ. 
Only  set  the  chief  of  sinners,  and  with  broken 
enough  hearts,  as  the  earthly  heads  and  leaders  of 
all  your  churches,  and  the  days  of  debate  and 
division  and  separation  are  from  that  day  doomed. 
As  you  are  my  witnesses  I  am  always  beseeching 
you  to  work  together  with  God  in  driving  out  of 
your  hearts  the  seven  devils  of  prepossession,  and 
prejudice,  and  partyspirit,  and  narrowmindedness, 
and  narrowheartedness.  And  that  by  reading  the 
very  best  books,  and  especially  by  reading  the  very 
best  of  your  enemy ""s  books.  I  will  repeat  to  you  what 
I  took  it  upon  me  to  say  on  this  subject  last  May  in 
the  General  Assembly  of  the  Church  of  Scotland. 
I  had  the  honour,  1  told  them,  and  the  happiness. 


158  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

to  be  one  of  Dr.  John  Duncan's  students,  that  so 
catholic  genius  and  true  saint,  and  among  the  many 
lessons  of  truth,  and  grace,  and  genius,  and  rare 
Christian  wisdom,  he  taught  his  students  I  always 
remember  this.  "  If,"  he  said,  "  I  met  a  man  from 
New  England,  I  would  say  to  him.  Read  the 
Marrow  Men ;  and  if  I  met  a  Marrow  Man,  I  would 
say,  Read  the  New  Englanders."  And,  though  I 
almost  owe  my  soul  to  the  great  Puritans,  yet, 
acting  on  Dr.  Duncan's  advice,  I  have  read  Hooker, 
the  great  opponent  of  the  Puritans,  till  I  have 
come  to  see  that  in  many  of  their  contentions 
Hooker  was  in  the  right,  and  Travers  in  the  wrong. 
And  this  very  morning,  I  told  them,  I  counted  seven 
very  different  authors  all  standing  most  amicably 
on  my  desk.  There  was  Hooker  at  their  head  with 
his  Polity,  there  was  John  Donne  with  his  Sermons, 
there  was  Edwards  with  his  Affections,  there  was 
Newman  with  his  Grammar,  and  there  was  Dante 
with  his  Bayiquet.  I  had  been  making  a  banquet 
for  my  classes  out  of  them  all,  and  there  they  stood, 
not  excommunicating  one  another  any  more,  but 
rather  supplementing,  and  supporting,  and  assisting, 
one  another,  and  me.  And  not  only  do  all  those 
authors  agree  on  my  desk  to-day,  but  they  all  agree 
themselves  now  where  they  now  are.  They  are  all 
reading  one  another's  books  now  with  an  open 
mind  and  with  an  open  heart.  They  are  all  blaming 
their  own  past  prej  udices  now,  they  are  all  ashamed 
of  all  their  past  party  spirit  now.  They  are  all 
rejoicing  in  their  neighbour's  truth  now,  and  in  his 
prosperity,  and  in  his  fame.     In  the  pulpit  of  the 


THE  PHARISEE  159 

Heavenly  Temple  the  forenoon  no  longer  speaks 
Canterbury,  and  the  afternoon  Geneva.  And  not 
only  the  great  masterpieces  of  the  past,  but  to  read 
the  periodicals  and  the  newspapers  of  other  churches 
than  your  own  will  reward  you,  and  that  not  only 
with  information  that  you  will  not  get  elsewhere, 
but  with  a  wider  sympathy,  a  more  catholic,  and  a 
more  liberal  and  generous,  temper.  And  that  will 
be  Christian  unity  accomplished  already,  as  far  as 
you  are  concerned.  That  will  be  heaven  already, 
with  its  love  and  its  peace,  descended  into  you. 

And  on  the  other  hand  shun  controversial 
literature  of  all  kinds,  unless  you  are  very  far 
advanced  in  all  knowledge  and  in  all  love.  If 
controversial  literature  must  be  written  and  read, 
I  doubt  if  you  are  the  man  either  to  write  it  or  to 
read  it.  You  are  not,  unless  your  heart  is  far 
more  full  of  love  and  its  fruits  than  most  men's 
hearts  are.  Richard  Baxter,  you  must  admit,  has 
purchased  a  right  and  a  title  to  speak  to  us  all  on 
this  matter  now  in  hand.  "  Another  fatal  hindrance 
to  a  heavenly  walk  and  conversation,"  he  says,  "  is 
our  too  frequent  disputes.  A  disputatious  spirit  is 
a  sure  sign  of  an  unsanctified  spirit.  They  are 
usually  men  least  acquainted  with  the  heavenly  life 
who  are  the  most  violent  disputers  about  the  circum- 
stantiality of  religion.  Yea,  though  you  were  sure 
that  your  opinions  were  true,  yet  when  the  chiefest 
of  your  zeal  is  turned  to  these  things,  the  life  of 
grace  soon  decays  within.  I  could  wish  you  were 
all  men  of  understanding  and  ability  to  defend 
every  truth  of  God;    but,  still,  I  would  have  the 


l60  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

chiefest  truth  to  be  chiefly  studied,  and  no  truth  to 
shoulder  out  the  thought  of  eternity.  The  least 
controverted  truths  are  usually  the  most  weighty 
and  of  most  necessary  and  frequent  use  to  our 
souls.''  So  testifies  to  us  the  seraphic  author  of 
the  Sa'nifs  Rest.  And,  to  wind  up  with,  listen  to 
a  very  different  voice  from  that  of  Richard  Baxter. 
Listen  to  what  Homer  says,  who  though  dead 
yet  speaketh  through  the  mouth  of  ^neas  to 
Achilles : — 

Long  in  the  field  of  words  we  may  contend, 

Reproach  is  infinite,  and  knows  no  end, 

Arm'd,  or  with  truth  or  falsehood,  right  a  wrong : 

So  voluble  a  weapon  is  the  tongue. 

Wounded  we  wound  ;  and  neither  side  can  fail, 

For  every  man  has  equal  strength  to  rail. 

The  God  of  peace  did  not  leave  Himself  without 
a  witness  wherever  even  a  Homer  sang  his  immortal 
Iliad. 


THE  PUBLICAN 


161 


XVII 

THE  PUBLICAN 

UR  Lord  was  teaching  and  healing 
daily  in  the  temple.  And  among 
the  multitudes  who  came  and  went 
while  He  was  so  employed  He  paid 
special  attention  to  a  Pharisee  and 
a  publican.  The  Pharisee  came  up  to  the  temple 
not  caring  who  saw  him  or  who  heard  him  when 
he  was  at  his  prayers.  He  had  nothing  to  say 
in  his  prayers  of  which  he  had  any  reason  to  be 
ashamed.  Whereas  the  publican  stood  afar  off,  and 
would  not  lift  up  so  much  as  his  eyes  to  heaven. 
But  all  the  same,  there  was  One  teaching  and 
healing  in  the  temple  that  day  who  not  only  saw 
both  the  Pharisee  and  the  publican,  but  who,  with- 
out listening,  heard  them  both  pray,  and  read  all 
that  was  in  both  their  hearts.  He  needed  not  to 
leave  His  seat  where  He  was  teaching  and  healing, 
because  at  all  that  distance,  and  notwithstanding  all 
that  surging  multitude,  He  knew  in  Himself  what 
those  two  men  were  thinking  and  what  they  were 
saying.  For, — I  am  He  that  searcheth  the  reins 
and  the  hearts.  And  I  will  give  to  every  one  of 
you  according  to  your  works. 

The  Pharisee  need  not  detain  us  long.     He  is  no 


162  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

deep  study  to  us.  He  is  familiar  to  us.  We  have 
him  among  ourselves.  There  are  multitudes  like 
him  among  ourselves.  At  the  same  time,  would 
that  there  were  more  men  like  him  among  our- 
selves. For  he  was  a  blameless  man.  He  was  a 
man  of  a  spotless  life.  He  was  an  upright  man  in 
all  his  dealings  with  other  men.  He  was  a  corner- 
stone of  the  city.  He  was  a  pillar  of  the  temple. 
There  was  no  one  in  the  temple  that  day  who  did 
not  do  him  obeisance  as  he  passed  by.  He  was 
admired,  and  honoured,  and  praised,  of  all  men. 
Yes.  Would  that  there  were  more  men  like  him 
in  all  our  cities  and  in  all  our  temples  also. 

It  is  the  publican  who  is  here  brought  forward 
by  our  Lord  for  our  special  learning.  The  publican 
is  discovered  to  us  for  our  very  closest  study.  His 
name  is  familiar  to  us,  but  not  his  state  of  mind. 
There  were  few  men  of  his  state  of  mind  in  his 
day,  and  they  are  not  many  in  our  day.  God  be 
merciful  to  me  a  sinner !  was  what  the  publican 
beat  his  breast  and  said.  The  sinner  !  that  was,  in 
exact  terms,  what  he  felt  and  what  he  said.  The 
sinner, — as  if  there  was  no  other  sinner  in  existence 
but  himself.  The  publican  was  as  possessed  with 
his  sinfulness  as  the  Pharisee  was  possessed  with 
his  righteousness.  The  Pharisee  thought  that  no 
other  man  in  all  the  world  was  at  all  his  equal  in 
his  righteousness,  and  that  was  exactly  what  the 
publican  thought  about  himself  in  his  sinfulness. 
The  publican  felt  utterly  alone  in  the  temple  that 
day.  He  felt  utterly  alone  in  the  whole  world 
every  day.     And  the  definiteness  of  the  word  that 


THE  PUBLICAN  l63 

he  instinctively  used  about  himself — the  sinner, 
is  to  this  day  the  best  possible  test  of  the  state  of 
mind  of  all  who  either  read  this  parable  or  speak 
about  it.  Coleridge,  when  he  is  writing  in  one 
place  about  Santa  Teresa,  lapses  for  once  into  a 
stupidity  that  is  unaccountable  in  a  man  of  such 
spiritual  insight  and  such  spiritual  sympathy.  The 
saint  had  been  speaking  to  herself  about  herself  in 
her  Journal,  and  that  in  the  very  same  terms  in 
which  the  publican  spoke  about  himself  in  the 
temple,  and  in  the  very  same  terms  in  which  Paul 
speaks  about  himself  in  his  first  Epistle  to  Timothy, 
when  the  great  critic  breaks  out  upon  her  for  her 
insincerity  and  her  extravagant  language  in  a  way 
very  distressing  to  his  admirers  to  read,  and  very 
unlike  himself.  Were  it  not  such  an  exception  to 
his  usual  insight  and  sympathy,  I  would  be  tempted 
to  say  that  such  a  censure  of  such  a  saint  is,  to  my 
mind,  and  I  think  I  have  the  mind  of  Christ,  a  far 
worse  sign  of  Coleridge  than  all  the  opium  he  ever 
ate,  and  all  the  procrastinated  work  he  died  and 
left  unfinished.  It  was  not  that  the  publican  was, 
speaking  coarsely,  the  absolutely  most  immoral 
man  in  all  the  city.  It  was  not  that  Paul  was, 
stupidly  speaking,  actually  the  chiefest  of  all  the 
actual  sinners  of  his  day.  It  was  not  that  Santa 
Teresa  was  the  very  worst  and  wickedest  woman  in 
all  Spain  in  her  day.  But  to  put  this  truth  about 
them  all  in  a  somewhat  homely  way,  it  was  some- 
thing not  unlike  this.  I  have  good  reason  to 
believe  that  other  men  than  myself  have  suffered 
from   toothache   and   rheumatism.     Only,  I    have 


ll64i  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

1/ 
never  had  the  actual   and  personal  experience  of 

any  man^s  excruciating  pain  but  my  own.  And 
indwelling  and  secret  sinfulness  is  the  toothache,  and 
the  neuralgia,  and  the  cancer,  and  the  accumulated 
and  exasperated  agony,  of  each  spiritual  man's  own 
soul.  It  was  not  what  the  publican  had  actually 
and  openly  done  that  festered  like  hell-fire  in  his 
heart  and  conscience,  it  was  what  he  himself  in- 
wardly was,  and  inwardly  was  to  himself  alone. 
The  heart  knoweth  its  own  bitterness,  he  would 
have  said  to  Coleridge  writing  far  too  flippantly 
about  Teresa.  It  was  because  Solomon's  prayer, 
offered  long  ago  at  the  dedication  of  the  temple, 
was  fulfilled  in  the  publican.  Which,  said  Solomon, 
shall  know  every  man  the  plague  of  his  own  heart, 
and  shall  spread  forth  his  hands  toward  this  house. 
The  whole  of  the  publican's  case  is  explained  before- 
hand in  that  one  profound  petition  of  Solomon's 
prayer.  O  poor  publican  !  O  publican  to  be  pitied 
both  of  God  and  man  !  God  be  merciful  to  all 
men  everywhere  and  in  every  day  who  know  the 
plague  of  their  own  heart ! 

Why  did  our  Lord  not  say  sanctified  ?  Or,  still 
better,  why  did  He  not  say  both  justified  and 
sanctified  ?  Why  did  He  confine  Himself  to 
justified  ?  It  was  sanctification  that  the  publican 
needed  even  more  than  justification,  and  our  Lord 
knew  that  quite  well.  Whereas,  He  only  said  that 
this  man  went  down  to  his  house  justified.  Justifica- 
tion was  but  the  half  of  the  publican's  prayer, 
and  it  was  not  the  most  poignant  and  most  press- 
ing half.  For,  if  he  is  only  justified  to-day  he 
will   be   back   to   the  temple   to-morrow   nothing 


tHE  PUBLICAN  l65 

better  of  having  been  justified  but  rather  worse. 
If  our  Lord  in  His  great  mercy  to  the  publican's 
misery  had  only  said  sanctified  what  a  happy 
worshipper  the  publican  would  have  been  from  that 
day !  And  what  a  happy  house  he  would  have  had 
at  home  from  that  day  !  Now,  why  did  our  Lord 
not  say  the  word  ?  Why  did  He  not  both  say  it 
and  do  it  to  this  poor  wretch  on  the  spot  ?  He 
would  need  to  have  a  good  reason  to  show  why  He 
did  not  say  sanctified.  And  no  doubt  He  will  have 
a  good  reason  to  show  when  He  is  judged.  Though 
it  is  not  always  easy  for  us  to  see  what  His  reason 
can  be.  Perhaps  He  tried  to  say  sanctified  that 
day  in  the  temple  and  could  not.  Who  can  tell 
but  that  He  was  so  carried  away  with  pity  for  the 
poor  publican  that  He  said  Father,  if  it  be  possible, 
let  us  send  this  miserable  man  to  his  house  sancti- 
fied.? And  perhaps  He  had  to  submit  and  say,  Thy 
will  be  done.  For  justification  is  an  immediate  act 
of  the  Father's  free  and  sovereign  grace.  An  act, 
on  the  spot,  of  God's  own  mind  and  heart  and  holy 
will.  And  therefore  the  publican  went  down  to  his 
house  only  justified.  Whereas,  sanctification  is  "an 
exceedingly  complex  work,"  as  John  Wesley  used  to 
call  it.  God  is  sending  sinful  men  down  to  their 
own  houses  justified  every  day,  but  not  sanctified. 
It  takes  a  long  lifetime,  in  most  cases,  to  sanctify  a 
sinner;  and  at  the  end  it  is  the  miracle  of  all 
miracles  to  the  old  sinner  himself  that  he  is  ever 
sanctified.  Both  are  miracles.  Both  justification 
and  sanctification.  Samuel  Rutherford  used  to  pose 
the  saints  of  his  day  with  this  dilemma,  which  of 
the  two  miracles  they  will  wonder  most  at  to  all 


166  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

eternity,  their  justification  or  their  sanctification  ? 
For  what  is  justification?  Justification  is  an  act 
of  God's  free  grace,  wherein  He  pardoneth  all  our 
sins,  and  accepteth  us  as  righteous  in  His  sight, 
only  for  the  righteousness  of  Christ  imputed  to  us, 
and  received  by  faith  alone.  And  what  is  sanctifica- 
tion? Sanctification  is  the  work  of  God's  free 
grace,  whereby  we  are  renewed  in  the  whole  man 
after  the  image  of  God,  and  are  enabled  more  and 
more  to  die  unto  sin,  and  live  unto  righteousness. 
And,  as  many  of  yourselves  know,  it  takes  many  a 
visit  to  the  temple,  and  many  a  far-off  stand  in  the 
temple,  and  many  a  penitent  prayer  both  in  the 
temple  and  in  your  own  house,  and  many  a  beat  of 
the  breast  everywhere,  before  the  exceedingly  com- 
plex work  of  sanctification  can  be  safely  said  to  be 
begun  in  you,  not  to  say  finished  in  you. 

Now,  on  this  whole  scene  I  will  make  this  one  more 
observation,  and  so  close.  You  are  not  to  suppose 
that  this  was  the  first  time,  much  less  the  one  and 
the  only  time,  those  two  men  had  come  up  in  that 
way  to  the  temple  to  pray.  You  may  depend  upon 
it  the  Pharisee  never  neglected  public  worship,  and 
by  this  time  neither  did  the  publican.  And  the 
oftener  the  Pharisee  went  up  to  the  temple  the 
more  he  went  down  to  his  house  despising  others. 
Whereas,  on  the  other  hand,  the  oftener  the 
publican  went  up  the  more  poignant  was  the  pain  in 
his  breast.  For  if  he  went  down  every  Sabbath  day 
justified,  as  he  did,  the  more  all  the  next  week  he 
loathed  himself  in  his  own  sight  for  his  iniquities 
and  for  his  abominations.     And  that  went  on  till 


THE  PUBLICAN  l67 

at  last  God  was  merciful  to  him,  and  took  him  up 
to  the  heavenly  temple  where  he  was  at  last  both 
sanctified  and  glorified  as  well  as  justified.  He 
had  often  fallen  back  in  the  agony  of  his  heart  on 
such  Scriptures  as  this  :  "  As  for  me,  I  will  behold 
Thy  face  in  righteousness ;  I  shall  be  satisfied  when 
I  awake  with  Thy  likeness,"  But  with  that,  and 
with  many  more  Scriptures  like  that,  to  alleviate 
his  agony,  he  had  often  charged  God  foolishly  for 
the  length  and  the  depth  of  his  misery.  But  when 
the  shore  was  won  at  last,  no  more  he  grudged  the 
billows  past.  For  by  that  time  he  was  like  the 
prisoner  in  Plutarch  who  received  a  chain  of  gold 
with  as  many  links  in  it,  and  each  link  as  heavy, 
as  had  been  that  chain  of  iron,  bound  with  which 
he  had  lain  so  long  in  prison  for  his  exiled  sovereign's 
sake.  And  you  must  learn  not  to  grudge  or  repine 
at  your  lifelong  visits  to  this  temple  in  search  or 
sanctification.  The  thing  you  so  unceasingly  seek 
is  not  here.  At  the  same  time,  this  is  the  way  to 
it.  And,  meantime,  you  will  every  Sabbath  day 
go  down  to  your  house  at  any  rate  justified.  And 
while  falling  infinitely  far  short  of  a  finished  sancti- 
fication, you  will  find  here  many  incidental  blessings 
that  will  help  to  keep  your  heart  from  wholly 
fainting,  till  to  you  also  it  will  be  said,  O  thou 
sinner  of  all  sinners,  be  it  unto  thee  in  this  matter 
of  sanctification  also,  even  as  thou  wilt.  And  then 
for  all  your  shame  you  shall  have  double,  and  for 
confusion  you  shall  rejoice  in  your  portion,  there- 
fore in  that  land  you  shall  possess  the  double, 
everlasting  joy  shall  be  unto  you. 


168  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 


XVIII 
THE  BLIND  LEADERS  OF  THE  BLIND 

^'*"''*^*^LL  the  same,  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees 
were  quite  right,  as  they  often  are. 
And  our  Lord's  disciples  were  wholly 
in  the  wrong,  as  they  often  are.  The 
disciples  had  no  business  to  sit  down 
to  eat  with  unwashen  hands,  and  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees  were  only  doing  their  bounden  duty  in 
entering  their  protest  against  such  disorderly  con- 
duct. Moses  never  sat  down  to  eat  till  he  had 
washed  both  his  hands  and  his  feet.  And  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  sat  in  Moses""  seat  for  the 
very  purpose  of  seeing  to  it  that  the  great  law- 
giver was  obeyed  and  imitated  in  all  things  great 
and  small  that  he  had  ever  said  and  done.  But, 
indeed,  Nature  herself  should  have  taught  the 
disciples  to  observe  ordinary  decency  in  all  their 
habits  at  table,  as  well  as  everywhere  else.  And, 
though  the  complainers  could  not  know  it,  they 
had  our  own  John  Wesley  with  them  also.  For 
Wesley  was  wont  to  preach  this  high  doctrine  of 
Moses,  and  of  Nature  herself,  to  the  people  called 
Methodists,  this  high  doctrine  of  his,  that  cleanli- 


THE  BLIND  LEADERS  OF  THE  BLIND    169 

nessis  next  to  Godliness.  And,  more  than  all  that, 
the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  had  the  Master  of  the 
disciples  so  far  with  them.  If  the  beam  had  not 
been  in  their  own  eye  He  would  have  been  wholly 
with  them  in  pulling  this  mote  out  of  the  eyes  of 
His  disciples.  You  are  quite  right,  He  as  good  as 
said  to  the  complainers.  You  are  only  doing  your 
duty  in  what  you  say  to  My  disciples.  At  the  same 
time,  why  do  you  get  yourselves  into  such  a  wicked 
temper  about  it.?  And  why  is  it  that  you  come  down 
all  the  way  from  Jerusalem  to  do  nothing  else  but 
to  find  fault  about  such  matters  as  the  washing  of 
hands,  and  feet,  and  cups,  and  pots,  and  tables  ? 
Have  you  no  washing  to  do  yourselves  at  home  ? 
Wash  your  own  hearts,  you  hypocrites.  And  with 
that  He  turned  on  them  in  a  way  that  made  Peter 
interpose  and  reprove  Him.  '  It  is  not  safe  ;  it  is 
not  wise,'  said  Peter,  '  to  speak  to  the  authorities 
in  that  way.  Such  language  will  be  sure  to  bring 
sharp  reprisals  on  us  all  one  day.'  But  instead  of 
the  timidity  and  the  restraint  the  disciples  would 
have  had  their  Master  observe  to  those  men  of  such 
power.  He  all  the  more  went  on  with  some  of  the 
most  plain-spoken  words  He  ever  uttered.  "  They 
be  blind  leaders  of  the  blind.  And  if  the  blind 
lead  the  blind,  both  shall  fall  into  the  ditch.''  Till 
Peter's  prophecy  at  last  came  true.  And  till  His 
enemies  took  the  most  terrible  reprisals  on  Peter's 
Master  for  His  heart-searching  eye  and  for  the 
fearlessness  of  His  speech. 

Now,  the  great  value  of  this  passage  to  us  lies 
in  this,  that  we  have  two  classes  of  preachers  here 


170  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

set  before  us  for  our  learning.  We  have  those 
teachers  and  preachers  who  are  wholly  taken  up 
with  the  outside  of  things  ;  with  cups,  and  pots, 
and  pans,  and  tables,  and  beds,  as  this  passage  has 
it.  And  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  our  Lord  who 
passes  by  all  these  things  in  order  that  He  may  get 
at  once  at  the  hearts  of  men.  And  it  is  a  most 
fearful  picture  that  our  Lord  here  gives  us  of  the 
heai'ts  of  men,  and  of  the  work  that  He  and  His 
successors  in  the  Christian  ministry  have  to  do  in 
the  hearts  of  men.  "  For  from  within,  out  of  the 
hearts  of  men,  proceed  evil  thoughts,  adulteries 
fornication,  murders,  thefts,  covetousness,  an  evil 
eye,  blasphemy,  pride,  foolishness."  No  wonder 
young  Newman  said  that  amid  all  his  wine-parties, 
and  all  his  musical  evenings,  and  all  his  readiness 
and  eagerness  to  join  in  any  merriment,  he  was 
shuddering  at  himself  all  the  time. 

Generalia  non  pungunt.  No.  But  there  are  no 
pointless  generalities  in  our  Lord's  preaching.  His 
preaching  is  quick  and  powerful,  and  sharper  than 
any  two-edged  sword,  piercing  even  to  the  dividing 
asunder  of  soul  and  spirit,  and  is  a  discerner  of 
the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart.  Neither  is 
there  any  creature  that  is  not  manifest  in  His  sight; 
but  all  things  are  naked  and  opened  to  the  eyes  or 
Him  with  whom  we  have  to  do.  "In  the  depart- 
ment of  Christian  morality,"  says  John  Foster, 
"  many  of  our  most  evangelical  preachers  are  greatly 
and  culpably  deficient.  They  rarely,  if  ever,  take 
up  some  one  topic  of  moral  duty,  such  as  honesty, 
veracity,  impartiality,  good  temper,  forgiveness  of 


THE  BLIND  LEADERS  OF  THE  BLIND    171 

injuries,  improvement  of  time,  and  such  like,  and 
investigate  the  principles,  and  the  rules,  and  the 
discriminations,  and  the  adaptations,  of  such  things. 
There  is  little,  nowadays,  of  the  Christian  casuistry 
found  in  many  of  our  old  divines.  Such  discussions 
would  cost  labour  and  thought,  but  they  would  be 
eminently  useful  in  setting  people's  judgments  and 
consciences  to  rights."  And  Robert  Hall,  in  an 
ordination  charge  addressed  to  a  young  minister, 
says,  "  Be  not  afraid  of  devoting  whole  sermons  to 
particular  parts  of  moral  conduct  and  religious 
duty.  Sometimes  dissect  characters,  and  describe 
particular  virtues  and  vices.  Point  out  to  your 
people,  and  with  unmistakable  distinctness,  both 
the  works  of  the  flesh  and  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit."" 
John  Jamieson  of  Forfar,  for  one,  would  have  satis- 
fied both  John  Foster  and  Robert  Hall.  For,  long 
before  their  day,  he  had  preached  and  published 
fifty  most  powerful  sermons  on  our  Lord's  present 
text,  treating  the  text  as  our  Lord  returned  to  it 
and  treated  it  continually  in  His  sermons,  and  as 
Foster  and  Hall  demanded  that  it  should  be  treated 
in  every  pulpit  worth  the  name.  And  even  after  those 
two  clear-eyed  volumes  of  heart-searching  sermons, 
Jamieson  is  bold  to  assert  that  every  hearer  and 
reader  of  his,  who  knows  the  plague  of  his  own 
heart,  will  admit  that  the  half  of  the  shame  and 
the  pain  and  the  wretchedness  and  the  downright 
misery  of  his  heart  has  not  yet  been  told  him.  And 
those  fifty  Gennesaret  sermons  delivered  in  Forfar 
dug  the  deep  foundations  on  which  more  than  a 
hundred  years  of  great  preaching  has  been  laid  in 


172  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 

Forfar,  and  is  being  laid  in  that  privileged  town 
down  to  this  day.  Would  that  every  pulpit  in 
Scotland  had  such  Christian  casuistry  in  it,  and 
such  unmistakable  distinctness !  But,  then,  that 
would  not  only  cost  the  preacher  labour  and  thought, 
as  Foster  admits,  but,  like  the  poet,  such  preachers 
would  have  to  cease  biting  their  pens  for  arguments 
and  eloquence,  and  would  have  to  look  into  their  own 
hearts  for  all  the  arguments  and  all  the  eloquence 
of  their  sermons.  It  is  the  Spirit  that  quickeueth 
both  you  and  your  preaching,  our  Master  is  always 
saying  to  us  preachers.  And  it  is  when  our  hearts 
are  quickened  to  see  in  our  own  hearts  all  that  He 
sees  in  them,  it  is  then,  and  only  then,  that  we 
shall  be  able  to  deal  as  He  would  have  us  deal,  and 
as  John  Foster  and  Robert  Hall  would  have  us  deal, 
and  as  John  Jamieson  actually  did  deal,  with  the 
hearts  of  his  hearers.  The  Scribes  and  the  Pharisees 
had  eyes  enough  to  preach  against  adultery  and 
murder  when  these  things  once  came  out  of  the 
hearts  of  the  people ;  but  they  were  as  blind  as 
moles  to  the  real  roots  of  these  things,  as  well  as 
to  the  kindred  roots  of  pride,  and  covetousness,  and 
envy,  and  deceit,  of  which  their  own  hearts,  and 
the  hearts  of  all  their  blinded  hearers,  were  full. 
And  these  are  the  things  that  truly  defile  a  man — 
evil  thoughts,  covetousness,  deceit,  an  evil  eye,  and 
such  like. 

Are  ye  so  without  understanding  also  ?  demanded 
their  Master  of  His  still  ignorant  disciples.  Without 
understanding,  that  is,  of  what  it  is  that  really  defiles 
a  man,  and  where  it  comes  from.     It  is  bad  enough 


THE  BLIND  LEADERS  OF  THE  BLIND    173 

to  have  some  secret  and  deadly  disease  about  you. 
But  to  have  your  physician  stark  ignorant  of  what 
is  the  matter  with  you,  and  how  to  treat  you,  that 
is  simply  despair  and  death  to  you,  I  was  once 
summoned  to  a  deathbed  around  which  stood  three 
of  the  most  eminent  doctors  in  the  city.  Surely  it 
is  not  come  to  that,  I  said,  as  the  dying  man  sent 
for  me  to  bid  me  good-bye.  It  need  not  come  to 
that,  said  the  three  doctors,  if  he  would  only  rouse 
himself  and  determine  not  to  die.  You  will  see ! 
said  the  dying  man,  smiling  to  me.  He  felt  the 
hand  of  death  on  him,  but  his  doctors  were  stark 
blind  to  what  he  felt,  and  why  he  felt  it.  They 
were  without  understanding,  and  so  he  was  in  his 
grave  before  the  week  was  at  an  end.  Tragedies 
like  that  will  occur  sometimes  even  with  the  best 
physicians,  but  such  tragical  cases  are  of  every  day 
occurrence  with  us  ministers.  The  diseases  of  our 
patients  are  so  deep  down  in  their  hearts,  and  we 
are  so  blind  to  our  own  hearts,  and  to  the  diseases 
of  our  own  hearts,  that  such  blood-guilty  deaths 
take  place  with  us  every  day.  In  the  plain-spoken 
words  of  this  very  Scripture,  we  attend  too  much 
to  the  outside  of  things;  to  pots,  and  pans,  and 
tables,  and  beds,  and  too  little  to  our  own  hearts 
and  the  hearts  of  our  hearers. 

When  the  Pilgrim  was  making  his  progress  through 
the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  his  rare  biographer 
tells  us  some  things  about  the  pilgrim's  experiences 
that  always  speak  home  to  my  heart.  About  the 
middle  of  the  valley  was  the  mouth  of  hell,  and  it 
stood  also  hard  by  the  wayside.      Also   he  heard 


174  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

doleful  voices,  and  rushings  to  and  fro,  so  that 
sometimes  he  thought  lie  should  be  torn  to  pieces, 
or  trodden  down  like  the  mire  in  the  streets.  Just 
when  he  was  come  over  against  the  mouth  of  the 
burning  pit,  one  of  the  wicked  ones  got  behind 
him,  and  stept  up  closely  to  him,  and  whisperingly 
suggested  many  grievous  blasphemies  to  him,  which 
he  verily  thought  had  proceeded  from  his  own 
heart.  When  Christian  had  travelled  in  this  dis- 
consolate condition  for  some  considerable  time,  he 
thought  he  heard  a  voice  of  a  man,  as  going  before 
him,  saying,  Though  I  walk  through  the  valley  of 
the  shadow  of  death,  I  will  fear  no  evil,  for  Thou  art 
with  me.  Now,  this  Scripture  at  present  open  before 
us  has  much  the  same  effect  on  me  as  that  voice 
in  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  had  upon 
Christian.  For,  as  from  that  voice  he  gathered 
that  some  one  who  feared  God  was  in  that  valley 
as  well  as  himself;  so,  from  this  scripture  I  gather 
that  He  who  here  searches  the  hearts  of  men,  knows 
my  heart  down  to  the  bottom,  with  all  its  wicked- 
ness, and  all  its  wretchedness,  and  all  its  posses- 
sion of  the  devil.  Speaking  only  for  myself  in  all 
these  matters,  but  speaking  honestly  for  myself,  I 
confess  to  you  that  I  find  far  more  comfort  just 
in  this  dreadful  discovery  of  the  hearts  of  men,  and 
of  my  own  heart,  than  I  find  in  far  more  ostensibly 
evangelical  scriptures.  To  me  this  awful  scripture 
is  as  cheering  sometimes  as  was  the  voice  of  that 
as  yet  unseen  man  in  the  valley  of  the  shadow  ot 
death.  And  for  much  the  same  reason.  I  told  you 
about  the  three  doctors  and  their  fast-dying  patient. 


THE  BLIND  LEADERS  OF  THE  BLIND    175 

Now,  he  died  of  sheer  despair  because  his  disease  was 
so  much  deeper  than  his  doctors'  diagnosis.  Had 
those  three  doctors  put  their  finger  on  the  deadly 
spot,  and  said,  thou  ailest  here  and  here ;  and  thou 
ailest  with  this  kind  of  agony  and  that, — then  that 
dead  man  would  have  been  back  at  his  work  within 
a  week.  But  as  it  was  he  was  in  his  grave  before 
the  next  Sabbath  day  dawned.  And  it  is  just 
because  my  great  Doctor,  Jesus  Christ,  puts  His 
Divine  finger  straight  on  this  agony  of  mine  and 
that :  it  is  this  that  makes  me  turn  away  from 
every  other  practitioner  of  the  heart,  and  say  to 
Him,  To  whom  can  I  go  but  to  Thee  !  And  it  is 
this  same  thing  that  makes  me  always  go  away  back 
to  John  Bunyan,  and  to  the  other  great  specialists 
of  his  deep  and  true  school.  Almost  all  the  doctors 
who  stand  round  my  bed  in  these  days  seem  to  me  to 
be  far  too  much  taken  up  with  the  outside  of  things  ; 
while,  all  the  time,  I  am  dying  of  a  heart  like  the 
pilgrim's  heart,  and  like  this  same  heart  that  Christ 
here  lays  bare  to  His  apostles  and  to  the  people. 
And  thus  it  is  that  my  Master's  so  perfect  diagnosis 
of  me,  even  before  He  has  begun  to  prescribe  to 
me,  is  already  such  a  message  of  hope  to  me.  The 
seventh  of  Mark,  as  well  as  the  seventh  of  Romans, 
and  the  Pilgrirns  Progress,  and  John  Owen,  and  all 
the  rest  of  that  great  heart-searching  kind,  all  make 
me  glad,  and  for  these  reasons:  First,  because  I 
gather  from  them  that  some  who  feared  God  were  in 
this  valley  as  well  as  myself.  Second,  for  that  I  see 
that  God  was  with  them,  though  in  that  dark  and 
dismal  state,  and  why  not  with  me .?     And,  third, 


176  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 

that  I  shall   have  them    for  my  company  all   the 
rest  of  my  way. 

And  when  He  had  called  all  the  people  unto 
Him  He  said  unto  them,  Hearken  unto  Me,  every 
one  of  you,  and  understand.  And,  every  one  of 
you  people  here  to-night,  hearken  and  understand 
all  that  He  here  says  to  you  about  your  own  hearts, 
every  one  of  you.  And  then  understand  this  also, 
that  they  that  be  whole  need  not  a  physician,  but 
they  that  are  sick.  And,  every  one  of  you,  under- 
stand with  me  also,  and  act  with  me.  And  act  with 
me  in  this  way.  His  discovery  to  me  of  the  state 
of  my  own  heart  only  the  more  entitles  me  and 
encourages  me  to  take  my  heart  to  Him,  and  to 
claim  at  His  hands  all  His  skill  in  such  hearts  as 
mine,  and  all  His  instruments  for  them  and  all  His 
remedies  for  them.  It  is  my  part  to  hear  and  to 
understand  what  He  here  says  to  me  about  myself, 
and  then  it  is  His  part  to  heal  me.  And  I  warn 
Him,  and  I  take  all  you  people  for  witnesses,  that 
I  will  give  Him  no  rest  till  my  heart  is  as  clean 
and  as  whole  as  His  own. 


The  rich  man  and  lazarus      177 


XIX 

THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS 

T  table  one  day  Dr.  Luther  was  asked 
whether  he  took  the  story  of  the 
rich  man  and  Lazarus  for  a  parable, 
or  for  an  actual  fact.  The  Reformer 
replied  that  to  his  mind  the  opening 
passage  at  any  rate  is  evidently  historical.  The 
description  of  the  rich  man  is  so  life-like.  There 
is  his  dress,  and  his  table,  and  his  five  brothers  all 
following  in  his  footsteps.  And  then  the  painful 
picture,  as  if  it  also  had  been  taken  from  the  life, 
of  a  certain  well-known  beggar  with  his  sores,  named 
Lazarus.  Yes,  said  Luther,  I  do  think  our  Lord 
must  have  known  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus  in 
Galilee,  or  in  Samaria,  or  in  Judea. 

Now,  whether  it  is  pure  history,  or  pure  parable, 
or  founded  on  fact,  this  tremendous  Scripture  is 
equally  true  and  is  equally  solemnising  to  us,  since 
it  comes  straight  to  us  from  our  Lord's  own  lips. 
And  our  main  errand  here  this  evening  is  to  enquire 
in  His  temple  just  what  lessons  our  Lord  would 
have  us  all  to  learn  and  to  put  in  practice  out  of 
this  terrible  story. 

M 


178  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

The  very  first  thing,  as  I  think,  that  we  are  to  see 
clearly  in  this  scripture  is  this,  that  the  rich  man  is 
not  in  hell  simply  and  wholly  because  he  had  starved 
Lazarus  to  death.  I  used  to  read  this  parable  so 
superficially  as  to  think  that  the  rich  man  is  where 
he  is  altogether  because  of  his  starvation  of  Lazarus. 
But  I  see  now  that  our  Lord  nowhere  says  so.  No. 
Let  the  full  truth  be  told  even  about  a  man  in  hell. 
Let  him  get  all  the  advocacy,  and  all  the  exculpation, 
and  all  the  palliation,  possible.  No ;  it  is  nowhere 
said  that  Lazarus  died  of  this  rich  man's  neglect. 
Not  at  all.  On  the  other  hand,  the  crumbs  that 
were  sent  out  to  Lazarus  must,  as  I  think,  have 
been  much  more  than  mere  crumbs.  They  must 
have  been  both  many  and  large  and  savoury 
crumbs,  as  I  think,  else  Lazarus  would  not  have 
been  laid  so  regularly  and  so  long  at  that  gate. 
Those  who  carried  Lazarus  to  that  rich  man's  gate 
every  morning  did  so,  as  I  think,  because  they  had 
found  out  by  experience  that  this  was  the  best  gate 
in  all  the  city  at  which  to  lay  Lazarus  down.  They 
had  tried  all  the  other  gates  in  the  city,  but  they 
always  came  back  to  this  gate. 

It  is  quite  true,  the  rich  man  might  have  done 
much  more  for  Lazarus  than  he  did.  For  instance, 
he  might  have  fitted  up  one  of  his  many  out-houses 
for  Lazarus  to  live  in ;  or  he  might  have  arranged 
for  a  weekly  pension  to  be  paid  to  the  incurable 
pauper  in  his  own  hovel ;  he  might  even  have  sent 
his  own  physician  to  report  to  him  as  to  the 
symptoms  and  the  progress  of  Lazarus's  sores. 
But  he  did  not  do  any  of  these  gracious  actions 


THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS        179 

to  Lazarus.  At  the  same  time  he  did  not  issue  an 
angry  order  that  that  putrifying  corpse,  called 
Lazarus,  must  no  more  pollute  the  air  before  the 
door  of  his  mansion.  He  might  have  given  orders 
to  his  servants  that  that  disgusting  carcass  was  to 
be  carted  away  for  ever  from  out  of  his  sight.  But 
it  is  not  said  that  he  was  so  hard-hearted  as  that. 
He  is  in  hell,  indeed,  but  he  is  not  in  hell  for  that; 
his  hell  would  have  been  both  deeper  and  hotter 
than  it  is,  if  he  had  said  and  done  all  that  against 
Lazarus.  For  you  must  know  that  there  are  degrees 
in  iiell  as  there  are  in  heaven  ;  there  are  depths  and 
deeper  depths  there ;  and  there  are  hot  and  hotter 
beds  there ;  and  with  less  and  less  water  to  cool 
tormented  tongues.  And  that  being  so,  this  rich 
man  might  have  been  even  worse  than  he  is,  as  He 
here  tells  us,  who  has  the  key  of  hell  and  of  death 
in  His  hands. 

Both  our  Bible  and  our  daily  life  are  full  of  the  real 
lesson  of  this  scripture — the  great  danger  of  great 
riches  to  the  rich  man's  immortal  soul.  Every  day 
we  see  great  riches  simply  ruining  their  possessors' 
souls  both  for  time  and  eternity.  Rich  men  are  so 
tempted  to  become  high-minded,  proud-spirited, 
arrogant,  imperious,  selfish,  forgetful,  and  cruel. 
Rich  men  get  their  own  way  from  everybody,  and 
there  is  nothing  in  this  world  so  bad  for  a  man  as 
iust  to  get  his  own  way  in  everything  and  from 
everybody.  All  men  yield  to  a  rich  man.  All 
men  prostrate  themselves  before  a  rich  man.  He 
speaks  when  he  pleases,  and  he  is  silent  wlien  he 
pleases.     All  are  silent  when  he  speaks  and  wait 


180  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

till  he  has  finished  what  he  has  to  say.  He  will 
not  bear  to  be  contradicted  or  corrected,  and  all 
men  learn  to  leave  him  alone.  A  rich  man  would 
need  to  be  a  very  good  man  before  his  riches  come  to 
him,  and  then  he  would  both  know  the  temptations 
that  lie  in  his  riches  and  would  strive  successfully 
against  those  temptations.  And  if  he  is  not  a  truly 
good  man  before  he  is  a  rich  man ;  if  he  is  not  a 
meek,  modest,  humble-minded,  considerate  Christian 
gentleman  before  he  is  a  rich  man,  a  thousand  to  one 
he  never  will  become  such  a  gentleman  after  he  has 
become  rich.  At  the  same  time,  while  all  that  is 
true,  great  riches  are  sometimes  great  stepping- 
stones  to  a  high  place  in  heaven ;  that  is  to  say, 
when  they  are  in  the  possession  of  a  man  whose 
treasure  does  not  lie  in  his  riches.  To  go  no 
further  than  Abraham  in  the  history  now  open 
before  us.  Abraham  was  a  very  rich  man.  One  of 
the  finest  chapters  in  all  the  Old  Testament  turns 
upon  Abraham  and  his  great  riches.  So  rich  was 
Abraham  that  his  mere  overflow  was  quite  enough 
to  make  Lot  his  nephew  a  rich  man  also.  Only, 
though  Abraham  in  iiis  generosity  could  make  Lot 
a  rich  man,  he  could  not  make  him  a  gentleman. 
Abraham  might  have  turned  upon  Lot  and  might 
have  said  to  him  that  every  horn  and  hoof  that 
Lot  possessed  he  possessed  through  his  uncle's 
liberality.  But  what  did  Abraham  as  a  matter  of 
fact  say  ?  He  said  these  immortal  words  to  Lot. 
"Let  there  be  no  strife,  I  pray  thee,  between  me 
and  thee,  and  between  my  herd  men  and  thy  herd- 
men  ;  for  we  be  brethren.     Is  not  the  whole  land 


THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS         181 

before  thee?  Separate  thyself,  I  pray  thee,  from 
me  :  if  thou  wilt  take  the  left  hand,  then  I  will 
take  the  right :  or  if  thou  depart  to  the  right  hand, 
I  will  go  to  the  left,"  What  a  Christian  gentleman 
was  Abraham,  and  that  too  such  a  long  time  before 
the  day  of  Christ !  And  what  an  abominable  mind 
his  nephew  in  his  greed  exhibited  !  And  the  root 
of  the  whole  contrast  lay  in  this.  Abraham  had 
begun  life  believing  God.  He  had  sought  first  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness,  and  all 
those  flocks  and  herds  were  added  to  him.  And 
with  them  there  was  also  added  an  ever  humbler, 
an  ever  nobler,  and  an  ever-heavenlier,  mind.  Once 
get  Abraham's  humble,  noble,  heavenly,  mind,  and 
then  set  your  heart  upon  making  riches  as  much  as 
you  like.  For  the  good  that  you  will  then  be  able 
to  do  all  your  days,  both  to  yourself  and  to  all 
other  men,  will  be  simply  incalculable. 

But  it  is  time  to  pass  the  great  gulf,  our  Lord 
leadinrj  us  across  it,  in  order  to  learn  from  Him 
some  of  the  great  lessons  that  He  here  sets  us  to 
learn,  both  in  heaven  and  in  hell.  And  first  in 
heaven.  Well,  Lazarus  who  now  lies  in  Abraham's 
bosom,  had  his  own  temptations  as  he  lay  at  the 
rich  man's  gate.  And  had  he  yielded  to  those 
temptations  he  would  not  have  been  where  he  now 
is.  He  would  have  been  where  the  rich  man  now 
is.  Lazarus's  temptations  were  to  be  embittered, 
and  to  repine,  and  to  complain,  and  to  find  fault 
with  God  and  man.  Lazarus  had  Asaph's  tempta- 
tions over  again  and  the  Seventy-third  Psalm  may 
have  helped  Lazarus  to  overcome  his  temptations. 


182  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

"As  for  me,"  said  Asaph,  "  my  feet  were  almost  gone : 
my  steps  had  well-nigh  sHp})ed.  For  I  was  envious 
at  the  foolish,  when  I  saw  the  prosperity  of  tiie 
wicked.  For  their  eyes  stand  out  with  fatness: 
they  have  more  than  heart  could  wish.  Therefore 
his  people  return  thither  :  and  waters  of  a  full  cup 
are  wrung  out  to  them.  For  all  the  day  have  I 
been  plagued,  and  chastened  every  morning.''"'  And 
like  Jeremiah  also,  Lazarus  would  remember  the 
sins  of  his  youth,  and  then  he  would  lament  in  this 
manner — "  Wherefore  doth  a  living  man  complain, 
a  man  for  the  punishment  of  his  sins  ?  He  sitteth 
alone  and  keepeth  silence.  He  putteth  his  mouth 
in  the  dust  if  so  be  there  may  be  hope."  And  then, 
since  he  had  been  brought  up  to  read  and  remember 
his  Bible,  he  would  call  this  out  of  Micah  to  mind. 
"  I  will  bear  the  indignation  of  the  Lord,  until  He 
plead  my  cause,  and  execute  judgment  for  me." 
Which  He  did  one  day.  For  one  day  when  tlie 
rich  man's  servant  took  out  his  morning  crumbs 
to  Lazarus  he  was  nowhere  to  be  found.  For  just 
when  the  previous  night  was  at  its  darkest,  and 
just  before  the  dawn,  the  angels  came  down  and 
carried  Lazarus  up  into  Abraham's  bosom. 

Perhaps  the  most  terrible  piece  of  pulpit  rhetoric 
that  ever  fell  from  any  preacher's  lips  is  to  be  found 
in  one  of  Newman's  Catholic  sermons.  I  had  in- 
tended to  quote  it  at  this  point  but  I  feel  now  that 
I  dare  not.  It  is  too  terrible.  It  is  literally  true,  but 
you  vrould  turn  sick  under  it.  For  it  describes  what 
every  lost  sinner  will  say  and  do  when  he  comes  to 
himself  too  late  before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ. 


THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS         183 

Just  think  for  yourself  what  you  will  say  and  do  if 
you  come  to  yourself  for  the  first  time  there.  Well, 
that  is  Newman's  terrible  sermon.  And  then  he 
goes  on  with  his  fearful  satire  to  give  us  the  conver- 
sations about  this  and  that  lost  soul  that  go  on  in 
every  mourning  coach  on  the  way  home  from  every 
such  rich  man's  funeral.  But,  terrible  as  Newman's 
pulpit  can  be,  there  is  no  pulpit  anywhere  with  the 
concentrated  terror  of  our  Lord's  pulpit  when  as 
here  He  takes  us  and  lays  our  ears  against  the  door 
of  hell.  The  rich  man  also  died,  and  was  buried. 
And  in  hell  he  lift  up  his  eyes,  being  in  torments, 
and  seeth  Abraham  afar  off,  and  Lazarus  in  his 
bosom.  And  he  cried,  and  all  hell  heard  him, 
Father  Abraham,  have  mercy  on  me,  for  I  am 
tormented  in  this  flame.  And  all  hell  listened  till 
it  heard  Abraham's  answer.  And  Abraham  said. 
Son,  remember !  And  the  smoke  of  their  torment 
went  up,  as  never  before,  when  they  all  began  again 
to  remember. 

It  is  hell  on  earth  already  when  any  sinner  begins 
to  remember.  Myself  am  hell !  cried  Satan  when 
he  began  to  remember.  And  we  are  all  Satan's 
seed  in  that.  We  simply  could  not  continue  to 
live  if  we  did  not  manage,  one  way  or  other,  to 
forget.  When  God  comes  and  compels  us  to  re- 
member, what  a  tornado  of  despair  overwhelms  our 
hearts  till  we  manage  again  to  forget.  Now,  as 
you  would  not  lie  down  in  hell,  Son,  remember ! 
Relieve  God  of  His  strange  work,  and  remember. 
Set  your  past  sins  in  order  before  yourself  from 
time  to  time.     Take  the  remorseful  work  out  of 


184  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

God's  hand  and  take  it  up  into  your  own  hand. 
Go  back  and  remember.  Go  back  to  that  day. 
Go  back  to  Lhat  night.  Go  back  to  that  hour  and 
power  of  darkness.  Remember  those  who  are  now 
in  hell  and  who  were  once  your  companions  in  sin. 
Remember  that  man.  Remember  that  woman. 
Remember  all  tliat  they  remember  about  you. 
We  sometimes  speak  of  the  book  of  memory. 
Read  often  in  it,  especially  in  the  blackest  pages 
of  it.  "  I  have  no  books,  but  I  have  myself,"  said 
a  great  genius  and  a  great  saint.  Well,  you  may 
not  have  many  books,  but  you  all  have  one  book. 
It  is  a  great  book.  It  is  a  tragic  book.  It  is  such 
a  book  that  there  is  no  other  book  like  it  to  you 
for  terror  and  for  horror.  And  then  it  is  all  true. 
It  is  no  romance.  It  is  no  invention.  For  it  is 
the  literal  record  of  your  own  past  life.  Return 
often  to  that  book.  Hold  dailv  readings  in  that 
book. 

There  are  many  more  lessons  in  this  terrible 
scripture.  But  there  is  one  lesson  specially  in- 
tended, as  I  think,  for  us  who  are  ministers.  This 
lost  soul  seems  to  have  had  no  hope  for  his  five 
brothers  if  they  were  left  alone  with  the  minister 
he  had  been  wont  to  meet  with  at  his  father's  table, 
and  had  been  wont  to  hear  preaching  on  Sabbath.  In 
hell  he  seems  to  have  come  to  be  of  the  mind  of  our 
forefathers  who  magnified  the  reading,  but  "especi- 
ally the  preaching,  of  the  word."  That  is  to  say, 
he  became  a  Puritan  in  his  appreciation  of  earnest 
preaching,  when  it  was  too  late.  He  admitted  that 
his  five  brothers  had  the  Prayerbook  and  the  Bible. 


THE  RICH  MAN  AND  LAZARUS         185 

*  But  so  had  I,'  he  said.  '  Only,  I  never  opened  them. 
I  did  not  understand  them.  And  none  of  the  young 
fellows  who  dined  and  danced  in  our  house  ever  once 
opened  their  Bible  any  more  than  I  did.  Among 
my  father"'s  servants  we  had  a  man  in  black  who 
read  prayers  morning  and  night  :  but  I  seldom  was 
present,  and  when  I  was  present,  I  always  fell  asleep. 
Nobody  paid  any  attention  to  his  dronings.  He 
never  spoke  to  me  alone.  Nor  did  my  father  nor 
did  my  mother.  Nobody  ever  took  me  and  told 
me  that  the  wages  of  a  life  like  mine  would  be  paid 
me  in  this  place  of  torment.  Else,  if  they  had,  do 
you  think  I  would  have  been  where  I  now  am  !  0 
Father  Abraham  :  pity  my  poor  brothers,  and  send 
and  deliver  them  from  those  dumb  dogs  that  eat 
and  drink  till  they  cannot  bark,' 

A  lesson  from  hell — as  it  seems  to  me — how  to 
read,  and  how  to  teach,  and  how  to  preach ;  especi- 
ally how  to  preach,  '  Put  a  testimony  into  it,'  he 
says  to  us  toothless  preachers.  "  Testify "  is  his 
very  word  to  us  from  hell.  '  Show  your  people 
that  you  believe  it,  if  no  one  else  does.  Especially, 
sjieak  straight  out  to  your  young  men ;  they  are  open 
and  honest.  They  will  believe  you,  and  will  honour 
you,  and  will  through  you  escape  this  place  of  tor- 
ment.'    "  Testify !  "  and  again  he  says — "  Testify  ! " 

Son,  remember,  testified  Abraham,  that  thou  in 
thy  lifetime  receivedst  thy  good  things,  and  like- 
wise Lazarus  evil  things.  Now,  my  sons  and  my 
daughters,  what  are  your  good  things .''  And  what 
are  your  evil  things  ?  What  is  your  treasure  ? 
And  where  is  it  ?     On  what  is  your  heart  set  day 


186  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 

and  night?  When  you  pray  to  your  Father  in 
secret,  for  what  do  you  most  importunately  and 
unceasingly  ask  ?  Child  of  God,  I  will  answer  for 
you.  I  know  what  your  evil  things  are,  and  what 
are  your  good  things.  Just  go  on  in  that  mind. 
Just  go  forward  in  that  pursuit.  And  some  day 
soon — the  day  is  at  the  door — the  same  angels  that 
carried  up  Lazarus  to  Abraham's  bosom  will  come 
and  carry  you  up  to  be  for  ever  with  the  Lord,  and 
to  be  for  ever  like  Him.  And,  till  they  come,  make 
this  your  song  every  morning  and  every  night  and 
the  whole  of  every  day  and  every  night — 

God  is  the  treasure  of  my  soul. 

The  source  of  lasting  joy ; 
A  joy  which  want  shall  not  impair. 

Nor  death  itself  destroy. 


THE  SLOTHFUL  SERVANT  187 


XX 


THE  SLOTHFUL  SERVANT  V^^HO  HID 
HIS  LORD'S  MONEY 

'AD  we  been  with  our  Lord  on  the 
Mount  of  Olives  that  day,  this  parable 
would  have  ended  far  differently  from 
the  way  we  would  have  expected  it 
to  end.  As  we  heard  the  servant 
with  the  five  talents  introduced,  and  then  the 
servant  with  the  two  talents,  and  then  the  servant 
with  the  one  talent,  we  would  have  felt  sure  that 
some  very  severe  things  were  soon  to  be  said  about 
the  greatly  gifted  among  men,  and  the  continually 
prosperous.  All  our  sympathies  would  have  been 
with  that  under-estimated  and  overlooked  servant 
who  had  only  one  talent  entrusted  to  him.  And 
at  the  beginning  of  this  parable  we  would  have  felt 
sure  that  before  it  closed  the  Divine  Preacher  would 
take  the  side  of  the  despised  and  untalented  servant, 
and  would  say  some  of  His  severest  things  about 
the  rich,  and  about  the  great,  and  about  those  who 
were  full  of  all  manner  of  prosperity.  But  we 
would  have  been  disappointed  in  our  expectations. 


188  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

We  would  soon  have  seen  that  our  Lord's  thoughts 
are  not  our  thoughts  about  such  men  and  such 
matters.  The  talented  and  the  privileged  and  the 
prosperous  in  life  are  always  the  few  and  not  the 
many.  It  is  the  untalented  and  the  unsuccessful 
and  the  obscure  and  the  overlooked  who  are  always 
the  multitude.  And  it  is  to  the  multitude,  and  to 
the  peculiar  temptations  of  the  multitude  in  the 
matter  now  in  hand,  that  our  Lord  here  speaks. 

The  servant  with  the  one  talent  started  on  his 
stewardship  with  a  great  grudge  at  his  master. 
He  is  a  hard  master,  said  that  sullen  servant  in  his 
heart.  At  any  rate,  he  has  been  a  hard  master  to 
me.  He  felt  himself  to  be  as  good  a  man  and  as 
deserving  as  any  of  his  fellow-servants,  and  he  may 
very  well  have  been  in  the  right  in  so  thinking  and 
in  so  saying.  And  here  was  he  treated  in  this  hard 
and  cruel  manner.  No  wonder  he  was  soured  at 
his  heart  with  the  treatment  he  had  got.  No 
wonder  that  he  took  up  his  one  talent  with  a  scowl, 
and  cast  it  into  a  hole  of  the  earth  with  disgust, 
saying  as  he  did  so  that  a  harder  or  a  more  unjust 
master  no  honest  servant  ever  had.  Those  five 
talents,  and  those  two  talents,  and  then  that  one 
talent,  all  rankled  in  his  heart,  till  he  was  the  most 
embittered  and  resentful  and  rebellious  of  men. 

When  Ouranius  first  entered  holy  orders  he  had 
a  great  haughtiness  in  his  temper.  The  rudeness, 
ill-nature,  or  perverse  behaviour,  of  any  of  his  flock 
used  at  first  to  betray  Ouranius  into  impatience. 
At  his  first  coming  to  his  little  village,  it  was  as 
disagreeable  to  him    as   a    prison,  and    every  day 


THE  SLOTHFUL  SERVANT  189 

seemed  too  tedious  to  be  endured  in  so  retired  a 
place.  He  thought  his  parish  was  too  full  of  poor 
and  mean  people,  that  were  none  of  them  fit  for 
the  conversation  of  a  gentleman.  This  put  him 
upon  a  close  application  to  his  studies.  He  kept 
much  at  home,  writ  notes  upon  Homer  and  Plautus, 
and  sometimes  thought  it  hard  to  be  called  to  pray 
by  any  poor  body's  bedside  when  he  was  just  in  the 
midst  of  one  of  Homer's  battles.  The  slothful 
servant  was  the  father  of  Ouranius. 

This  servant  who  hid  his  talent  in  the  earth  was 
the  father  of  that  young  Hifihland  minister  also  who 
hid  his  sermon  in  the  snow.  His  history  was  this.  A 
city  congregation  was  looking  out  for  a  colleague  and 
successor  to  their  old  minister.  They  had  heard  of 
a  preacher  of  great  promise  in  a  remote  locality, 
but  before  they  would  commit  themselves  to  him 
they  sent  four  of  their  number  to  hear  him  in  his 
own  pulpit.  It  was  mid-winter  and  a  great  snow- 
storm came  on  that  Saturday  night.  The  ambi- 
tious and  not  unfaithful  young  minister  had  his 
sermon  all  ready,  but  as  there  would  be  a  small 
congregation  that  snowy  morning  he  would  not 
throw  away  his  whole  week's  work  on  such  a 
handful,  and  so  he  left  his  sermon  at  home.  When 
he  entered  the  pulpit  it  was  too  late  now  when  he 
saw  a  seatful  of  city-looking  men  in  the  far  end 
of  the  empty  church.  And  the  explanation  he 
stammered  out  to  them  did  not  mend  matters. 
Till  it  is  to  be  feared  that  his  Master's  prophecy  at 
the  end  of  this  parable  was,  some  of  it,  fulfilled  in 
that  manse  that  Sabbath  night.     He  had  for  long 


190  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

been  ambitious  of  the  city,  and  he  had  a  sharp 
punishment  that  day  for  despising  his  small  congre- 
gation ;  for  hiding  his  talent  at  home  because  there 
would  not  be  enough  people  to  appreciate  it. 

This  servant  v/ho  hid  his  lord's  money  was  the 
father  also  of  all  those  ministers  among  us  who 
will  not  do  their  ordained  work  because  they  have 
so  little  to  do.  Their  field  is  so  small  that  it  is 
not  worth  their  pains  taking  off  their  coat  to 
gather  out  the  stones,  and  to  weed  out  the  thorns, 
and  to  plough  up  the  fallow  ground,  and  to  sow 
in  their  too  small  pulpit  and  pastorate  the  seed  ol 
the  kingdom  of  heaven.  If  they  had  as  large  a 
field  as  that  five-talented  fellow-servant  of  theirs ; 
if  they  had  a  city  pulpit ;  if  they  had  a  people  oi 
education  and  intelligence,  they  would  prepare  for 
the  Sabbath  in  a  very  different  fashion  from  what 
they  do.  But  as  it  is,  what  is  the  use?  He  was 
the  father  of  all  those  probationers  also  who  stand 
idle  till  they  are  settled.  Once  they  are  settled 
and  married  they  will  lay  out  their  days,  and  read 
the  best,  and  rise  in  the  morning,  and  preach  every 
Sabbath  to  the  top  of  their  ability.  You  will  see 
if  they  will  not.  But  a  probationer  with  an  un- 
settled mind  cannot  work  in  that  way.  He  is  here 
to-day  and  there  to-mnrrow,  and  he  has  no  heart 
to  tackle  a  serious  task  of  any  kind.  Indeed  what 
can  he  do  but  wait  on  and  on  for  a  call  ?  With 
all  those  drawbacks,  two  probationers  rise  up  before 
me  who  had  another  father  than  this  wicked  and 
slothful  servant.  The  one  of  them  did  this  among 
other  things  all  his  probationer  time.     When  he 


THE  SLOTHFUL  SERVANT  19 1 

preached  in  a  vacancy,  or  for  a  friend,  as  he  was 
preaching  it,  for  the  first  time  he  found  out  the 
faults  of  his  sermon.  He  found  out  the  loose  links 
that  were  in  it ;  the  want  of  a  beginning  and  a 
middle  and  an  end  there  was  in  it;  the  want  of 
order  and  proportion  there  was  in  it ;  the  want 
of  march,  and  of  progress,  and  of  coming  to 
a  head  there  was  in  it;  and  the  many  other 
faults  of  all  kinds  there  were  in  it.  And  on 
Monday  morning  the  first  thing  he  did,  while  the 
shame  and  the  pain  of  his  bad  work  were  still  in 
his  heart,  he  rose  and  took  his  sermon  to  pieces, 
re-arranged  it  in  the  light  of  yesterday,  re-wrote 
it  from  beginning  to  end,  and  preached  it  again 
next  Sabbath,  a  completely  new  creation,  and  a 
conscientious,  a  living,  and  a  life-giving,  message. 
Newman  re-wrote  all  his  sermons  three  times  over, 
and  one  of  his  best-written  books  he  re-wrote  five 
times.  And  that  probationer  did  that  again  and 
again  and  again  till  he  not  only  made  his  first 
sermons  perfect,  but,  better  than  that,  by  that 
fidelity  and  by  that  labour  he  worked  his  whole 
mind  into  a  methodicalness,  and  into  an  order, 
and  into  a  clearness,  and  into  a  consecutiveness,  and 
into  other  high  qualities,  that  have  all  combined 
to  make  him  one  of  the  foremost  preachers  of  our 
day.  The  other  probationer  who  rises  up  before 
me  executed  editorial  and  other  work  during  that 
same  period  of  his  life :  work  which  stands  on  all 
our  shelves  a  quarry  of  resource  to  us,  and  a  monu- 
ment of  honour  to  him.  And  at  the  same  time  he 
began  to  lay  up  those  immense  stores  of  reading 


192  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

and  writing  that  make  his  every  sentence  to  day  a 
model  of  fulness,  and  clearness,  and  finish. 

The  unprofitable  servant  was  the  father  of 
Clemens,  and  Fervidus,  and  Eugenia  also.  For 
Clemens  is  always  proposing  to  himself  what  he 
would  do  if  he  had  a  great  estate.  He  would 
outdo  all  the  charitable  men  that  have  gone  before 
him  ;  he  would  retire  from  the  world ;  he  would 
have  no  equipage ;  he  would  allow  himself  only 
necessaries,  in  order  that  widows  and  orphans,  the 
sick  and  the  distressed,  might  find  relief  out  of  his 
estate.  Come  to  thy  senses,  Clemens.  Do  not  talk 
what  thou  wouldst  do  if  thou  wert  an  angel,  but 
consider  what  thou  canst  do  as  thou  art  a  man. 
Make  the  best  use  of  thy  present  state.  Remember 
the  poor  widow's  mite,  Clemens.  You  will  find 
Clemens  in  the  Law  gallery  also.  Fervidus,  again, 
is  only  sorry  that  he  is  not  in  holy  orders.  He  is 
often  thinking  what  reformation  he  would  make  in 
the  world  if  he  was  a  priest  or  a  bishop.  He  would 
then  have  devoted  himself  wholly  to  God  and 
religion,  and  have  had  no  other  care  but  how  to  save 
souls.  But  do  not  believe  yourself,  Fervidus.  For 
why  do  you  neglect  as  you  do  those  whose  priest 
and  bishop  you  already  are  ?  You  hire  a  coachman 
to  carry  you  to  church,  and  to  sit  in  the  street 
with  his  horses  whilst  you  are  attending  divine 
service.  You  never  ask  him  how  he  supplies  the 
loss  of  divine  service,  or  what  means  he  takes 
to  preserve  himself  in  a  state  of  piety.  And  so 
on,  Fervidus,  through  all  your  un-Christian  life. 
Eugenia,    again,  is  a  good  young  woman,  full    of 


THE  SLOTHFUL  SERVANT  193 

pious  dispositions.  She  is  intending  if  ever  she 
has  a  family  to  be  the  best  mistress  of  it  that 
ever  was.  Her  house  shall  be  a  school  of  religion, 
and  her  children  and  servants  shall  be  brought  up 
in  the  strictest  practice  of  piety.  She  will  spend  her 
time  in  a  very  different  manner  from  the  rest  of  the 
world.  It  may  be  so,  Eugenia.  The  piety  of  your 
mind  makes  one  think  that  you  intend  all  this 
with  sincerity.  But  you  are  not  yet  the  head  of 
a  family,  and  perhaps  never  may  be.  But,  Eugenia, 
you  have  now  one  maid.  She  dresses  you  for 
church,  you  ask  her  for  what  you  want,  and  then 
you  leave  her  to  have  as  little  religion  as  she 
pleases.  You  turn  her  away,  you  hire  another, 
she  also  comes,  and  after  a  time  goes.  You  need 
not  stay,  Eugenia,  to  be  so  extraordinary  a  person. 
The  opportunity  is  now  in  your  own  hands.  Your 
lady's  maid  is  your  family  at  present.  She  is 
under  your  care.  Be  now  that  religious  governess 
that  you  intend  to  be.  Teach  her  the  catechism, 
hear  her  read  and  exhort  her  to  pray.  Take  her 
with  you  to  church,  and  spare  no  pains  to  make  her 
as  holy  and  devout  as  yourself.  When  you  do  this 
much  good  in  your  present  state,  then  you  are 
already  that  extraordinary  person  you  intend  to  be. 
And,  till  you  thus  live  up  to  your  present  state, 
there  is  but  little  hope  that  the  altering  of  your 
state  will  alter  your  way  of  life.  Eugenia  also,  you 
will  all  see,  is  one  of  his  daughters  who  said :  If  I 
had  had  five  talents  committed  to  me,  or  even  two, 
I  would  have  traded  with  the  same  and  made  them 
other  five  talents  and  other  two. 


194  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

But  let  Eugenia  be  done  at  once  and  for  ever 
with  such  a  father.  Let  Eugenia  be  born  again 
till  she  has  her  Father  in  heaven,  not  in  name  only, 
but  in  deed  and  in  truth.  Come  out  this  week  to 
Fountainbridge,  Eugenia.  In  our  mission  district 
in  Fountainbridge  you  will  find  a  prepared  scope 
for  all  your  talents  of  every  number  and  of  every 
kind.  There  are  hundreds  of  girls  out  there  who 
sorely  need  just  such  a  friend  as  you  could  be  to 
them.  They  need  above  everything  else  an  elder 
sister  and  a  more  talented  sister  just  like  you. 
Solitary  girls  in  lodgings  have  a  hard  fight  of  it  to 
keep  their  heads  above  water.  Poor  girls  starved 
to  death  for  want  of  some  one  to  love  them,  and 
befriend  them,  and  counsel  them,  and  encourage 
them  in  virtue  and  godliness.  You  may  not  have 
many  talents,  you  may  not  be  rich,  you  may  not 
be  very  clever,  or  very  far  on  yourself  in  the  best 
things,  but  you  are  better  off,  a  thousand  times, 
than  those  poor  sisters  of  yours  out  there.  And 
you  can  speak  to  them,  and  know  their  names,  and 
tell  them  your  name,  and  go  sometimes  to  see 
them.  At  your  very  poorest  and  very  least  talented 
you  can  teach  two  or  three  neglected  children  for 
an  hour  every  Sabbath  day.  You  can  take  them 
down  to  the  water-side  on  a  Saturday.  You  can 
take  them  home  to  a  little  tea-party  every  week  or 
two.  You  can  give  them  little  books  to  read, 
and  make  them  tell  you  what  they  have  read,  and 
better  and  better  books  as  they  grow  up.  Good 
books  for  children  are  so  cheap  nowadays  that  you 
do  not  need  to  be  rich  in  order  to  have  a  delightful 


THE  SLOTHFUL  SERVANT  195 

little  library  provided  for  every  poor  girl's  lodgings, 
and  for  every  Sabbath-school  child's  mother's  house. 
Come  out  and  make  a  beginning  with  your  one 
talent  this  very  week.  We  are  all  making  a 
beginning  again  this  very  week  in  that  famous  old 
field  so  well  known  to  your  forefathers  and  fore- 
mothers  in  such  noble  work.  Let  Clemens,  and 
Fervidus,  and  Eugenia  all  come.  Let  the  five- 
talented,  and  the  two-talented,  and  the  one- 
talented,  and  the  no-talented  at  all,  come.  For 
there  is  a  field  for  all  in  Fountainbridge,  and  many 
a  Well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant !  will  before 
long  be  purchased  there  again,  as  in  days  gone  by. 
Come  away  then,  O  servant  of  God  with  the  one 
talent !  Come  and  light  a  lamp,  like  Samuel. 
Come  and  keep  a  door,  like  David.  Come  and  give 
two  mites,  like  the  poor  widow.  Come  and  give  a 
cup  of  cold  water  in  the  name  of  a  disciple.     For, 

Little  drops  of  water. 

Little  grains  of  sand. 
Make  the  mighty  ocean 

And  the  pleasant  land. 

Little  deeds  of  kindness, 

Little  words  of  love. 
Help  to  make  earth  happy, 

Like  the  heaven  above. 


196  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 


XXI 
THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT 

F  you  had  been  destined  by  your  parents 
to  be  a  minister,  and  if  at  twelve 
years  old  you  had  come  to  the  same 
decision  yourself,  from  that  day  you 
would  have  begun  to  think  continually 
about  your  future  office,  and  you  would  every  day 
have  done  something  to  prepare  yourself  for  your 
future  office.  You  would  have  made  it  your  custom 
every  Sabbath  day  to  go  up  to  the  sanctuary  both 
to  hear  and  to  ask  questions  about  the  Word  of 
God,  in  the  reading  and  preaching  of  which  your 
whole  life  was  to  be  spent.  Even  if  your  teachers 
had  not  shown  you  the  way  you  would  have  found 
out  your  own  way  of  reading  the  Word  of  God, 
and  meditating  upon  it,  and  employing,  not  your 
memory  only,  but  your  pen  and  ink  also,  in  order 
to  store  up  your  observations  and  your  readings 
and  your  meditations  against  the  time  to  come. 
You  would  have  been  like  Apelles  the  painter  who 
never  passed  a  day  without  drawing  at  least  one  line 
and  filling  it  in.  Nulla  dies  sine  linea,  was  all  that 
artist's   secret,  and   it  was   all   his   advice   to    his 


THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT  197 

privileged  apprentices.  And  all  your  days  you 
would  have  attributed  any  success  of  yours  to  that 
teacher  who  first  printed  that  proverb  on  your  young 
conscience,  and  at  the  same  time  showed  you  how 
to  perform  it.  Now,  mutatis  mutandis,  that  is  to 
say,  after  making  all  the  necessary  changes,  that 
was  our  Lord's  exact  case  till  He  began  to  be  about 
thirty  years  of  age.  And  thus  it  was  that,  having 
been  made  in  all  things  like  unto  His  brethren.  He 
both  observed,  and  read,  and  meditated,  and  laid 
up,  the  greatest  treasures  of  grace  and  truth  against 
the  day  of  His  showing  to  Israel.  And  thus  it  was 
that,  in  all  His  ministry,  He  was  never  once  taken 
unawares  or  unprepared.  Give  Him  suddenly  any 
Old  Testament  text  to  open  up  and  He  was  ready 
on  the  spot  to  do  it.  Set  Him  any  intricate  ques- 
tion, whatever  your  motive  might  be,  and  immedi- 
ately you  got  your  answer.  As  for  instance  in  the 
case  now  before  us.  When  Peter  came  to  Him  and 
said.  Lord,  how  oft  shall  my  brother  sin  against 
me,  and  I  forgive  him  ?  His  Master  that  moment 
recalled  that  Roman  procurator  to  mind  whose  case 
had  been  the  conversation  and  congratulation  of 
all  Galilee  in  years  now  long  past.  And  how  well 
that  case  fitted  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven  for  one 
parable  of  that  kingdom,  all  the  world  has  seen  ever 
since  that  day  on  which  our  Lord  gave  that  pro- 
curator''s  case  as  His  answer  to  Peter's  complaint. 

Peter,  for  a  loi  g  time,  was  a  most  interfering  and 
offensive  disciple.  Peter  was  continually  running 
up  against  all  other  men.  He  was  always  both 
giving  offence  and  taking  offence.     He  was  always 


198  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

inflicting  wounds  and  receiving  the  same.  Wlien 
Peter  was  converted  from  all  that  he  splendidly 
strengthened  his  brethren.  But  during  the  process 
of  his  conversion,  and  till  it  was  perfected,  he  both 
caused  himself  many  stumbles  and  many  falls,  and 
was  the  cause  of  many  such  things  to  his  fellow- 
disciples.  What  the  exact  matter  was  at  that 
moment  we  are  not  toJd.  Only,  we  have  Peter 
coming  with  this  remonstrance  to  his  Master — How 
oft  shall  my  brother  sin  against  me,  and  I  forgive 
him  ?  till  seven  times  ?  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  I 
say  not  unto  thee  until  seven  times  :  but,  until 
seventy  times  seven.  And  then  He  told  Peter  the 
story  of  that  Roman  officer  who  is  now  known  to 
all  time  as  the  Unmerciful  Servant.  And  in  this 
so  apposite  story,  our  Lord  was  like  a  scribe,  as  He 
says  Himself,  which  is  instructed  unto  the  kingdom 
of  heaven,  which  bringeth  forth  out  of  his  treasure 
things  new  and  old.  And  then  after  telling  Peter 
and  all  the  Twelve  this  story  of  Caesar  and  his 
degraded  and  imprisoned  procurator,  our  Lord 
added  this  application  to  the  story — So  likewise 
shall  My  Heavenly  Father  do  also  unto  you,  if  ye 
from  your  heart  forgive  not  every  one  his  brother 
their  trespasses. 

Now,  we  are  all  to  learn  from  this  scripture,  as 
we  have  all  learned  it  already  from  our  own 
experience,  that  Almighty  God  has  His  reckoning 
times  with  all  His  servants,  even  in  this  life.  He 
is  to  have  a  great,  a  universal,  and  an  irrevocable, 
reckoning  time  with  all  men  at  the  end  of  this  life ; 
but  the  first  point  in  this  parable  is  this,  that  He 


THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT  199 

has  preliminary  and  preparatory  reckoning  times  in 
which  He  begins  to  take  account  of  His  servants 
even  in  this  world.  Caesar  would  take  account  of 
his  servants,  says  our  Lord.  Now  the  best  way  to 
understand  this  is  to  look  back  at  our  past  lives. 
Unless,  indeed,  we  have  all  along  been  let  alone  of 
God,  as  is  sometimes  the  case.  But,  no  doubt, 
those  reckoning  times  have,  by  God's  special  grace 
to  us,  come  already  to  some  of  us.  When  Dr. 
Chalmers's  reckoning  time  first  came  to  him  he  was 
a  greatly  gifted,  but  as  yet  an  utterly  unprofitable, 
servant.  It  came  to  him  in  his  brother  George's 
illness  and  death ;  and  then  it  came  back  again  to 
him  in  his  own  long,  and  all  but  fatal,  illness.  It 
came  to  that  young  communicant  I  told  you  about, 
when  her  mother  died.  And  it  came  to  that  other 
young  communicant  when — "  I  was  engaged  to  be 
married,  sir,  and  she  died."  I  have  one  time, 
especially,  ever  before  me,  when  my  own  reckoning 
time  once  came  to  me.  And  ever  since  that  time  I 
see  myself  in  this  chapter  as  in  a  glass.  This 
chapter  always  reads  to  me  like  a  literal  prophecy 
of  myself.  How  did  your  reckoning  time  come  to 
you  ?  What  was  it  that  brought  your  debt  to  a 
head  ?  What  was  it  that  brought  you  up  to  God's 
judgment  seat  before  the  time  ?  What  great  tres- 
pass was  it  of  yours  ?  What  great  accumulation  of 
debt  was  it  of  yours  ?  And  did  you  do  like  this 
Galilean  procurator  ?  Did  you  fall  down  and 
worship  God  and  appeal  to  His  patience  ?  Did 
you  promise  to  pay  all  the  debt  if  only  He  would 
let  you  have  sufficient  time  in  which  to  pay  it.'' 


200  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

Did  you  swear  to  Him  that  you  would  never  commit 
that  great  trespass  again  ?  Did  you  engage  also 
that  you  would  watch,  and  pray,  and  would  crucify 
your  flesh,  with  its  affections  and  lusts,  if  only  He 
would  not  deliver  you  to  the  tormentors.  And 
how  did  it  all  end  ?     Or,  is  it  all  ended  yet  ? 

But  the  same  servant  went  out,  and  found  one  of 
his  fellow-servants  which  owed  him  an  hundred 
pence;  and  he  laid  his  hands  on  him  and  took  him  by 
the  throat,  saying.  Pay  me  that  thou  owest.  Now  we 
are  such,  and  our  fellow-servants  are  such,  that  they 
are  continually  running  into  all  kinds  of  debt  to 
us,  and  to  all  depths  of  debt.  Our  brother  is  like 
Peter''s  brother,  in  that  he  is  sinning  against  us  seven 
times  every  day.  Partly  through  his  off*ensiveness 
and  injuriousness,  and  partly  through  our  imagining 
all  kinds  of  offences  and  injuries  at  his  hand,  the 
most  immense  debts  are  being  run  up  between  us. 
Seven  things  in  a  single  day,  sometimes,  will  come 
between  us  and  our  brother.  He  forgot  us.  He 
overlooked  us.  He  preferred  some  one  else  to  us. 
He  acted  on  his  own  intelligence,  and  judgment, 
and  conscience,  in  some  matter  in  which  we  had  the 
insolence  and  effrontery  to  dictate  to  him.  He  got 
some  promotion,  or  some  praise,  that  we  had  not 
friendship  enough  to  him  to  stomach.  He  was 
more  talked  about  than  we  were.  He  carried  his 
custom  to  another  shop  than  ours.  We  wrote  a 
book,  we  preached  a  sermon,  we  made  a  speech,  we 
sang  a  song,  and  he  did  not  praise  us  to  the  top  of 
our  bent.  Say,  how  often  shall  my  brother  sin 
against  me  in  such  ways  as  these,  and  I  forgive  him  ? 


THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT  201 

No,  I  cannot  do  it.  I  have  tried  it,  and  I  cannot 
do  it.  From  the  heart  to  forgive  debts  like  these 
no,  never,  I  cannot  do  it.  And  dost  Thou  actually 
expect  it  of  me  ?  Or,  is  this  only  another  economy 
of  Thine  ?  At  any  rate,  it  cannot  be  done.  It  has 
never  been  done,  and  it  never  will  be  done,  so  as  to 
justify  my  Heavenly  Father  in  forgiving  me  my 
trespasses.  If  He  suspends  my  forgiveness  on  my 
forgiving  such  trespasses  as  these — who  shall  be 
saved  ?  Not  one.  No,  not  one.  Not  I,  at  any 
rate.  "  Do  you  think  it  will  ever  be  possible  to 
construct  an  instrument  to  discover  and  to  exhibit 
our  thoughts  against  our  neighbour  ?  "  asked  a  Pall 
Mall  interviewer  at  Mr.  Edison,  the  great  American 
inventor.  "Such  an  instrument  is  possible,"  returned 
Edison.  "  But  what  then  ?  Every  man  would  flee 
from  the  face  of  his  neighbour,  and  would  flee  to 
any  shelter."  So  he  would.  And  so  he  does  seventy 
times  every  day.  As  Peter  afterwards  said,  Lord 
to  whom  shall  I  flee  but  unto  Thee  ?  Who  shall 
shelter  me  and  my  unforgiving  heart  but  Thee ! 
Who  can  justify  a  man  like  me,  both  now  and  at 
the  last  account,  but  Thee  and  Thy  Heavenly  Father 
in  Thee !  Likewise  also  say  all  His  disciples.  As 
well  ask  us  to  cast  Arthur's  Seat  into  the  sea. 

I  feel  sure  you  all  say  the  Lord's  Prayer  every 
night  before  you  sleep.  Well,  how  do  you  do 
when  you  come  to  the  fifth  petition,  which  is  this — 
And  forgive  us  our  debts,  as  we  forgive  our  debtors  ? 
Dr.  Chalmers  confesses  in  one  place  that  he  did  not 
feel  that  dreadful  sense  of  sin  and  guilt  which  so 
overwhelmed  Halyburton  every  night.     There  are 


202  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 

some  advantages,  you  see,  in  not  liaving  such  an 
overwhelming  sense  of  sin  as  Halyhurton  had.  For 
one  thing,  you  get  sooner  to  sleep  every  night,  and 
you  get  your  sleep  more  unbroken  with  dreams  of 
the  coming  day  of  account.  Amen !  stuck  in  my 
throat,  says  Macbeth.  And  Amen  stuck  many  a 
night  in  Halyburton's  throat  over  the  fifth  petition. 
His  brother  in  St.  Andrews  had  trespassed  against 
him  that  day.  He  had  outrun  him  in  some  race. 
He  had  outbidden  him  in  some  market.  He  had 
damned  Halyburton's  sermon  with  faint  praise.  He 
had  just  hinted  a  fault,  and  had  hesitated  dislike. 
He  had  been  reported  to  Halyburton  as  having 
sneered  at  the  scholarship  and  the  style  of  Haly- 
burton's  first  publication.  He  had  trespassed 
against  Halyburton  that  day  in  a  way  that  Haly- 
burton has  not  the  courage  to  set  down  in  black 
and  white  in  his  diary  that  night,  and  therefore 
he  could  neither  say  Amen,  nor  get  to  sleep. 
But  Chalmers  got  his  fill  of  Halyburton's  sense 
both  of  the  guilt  and  the  pollution  of  sin,  long 
before  he  went  so  suddenly  to  his  last  account,  as 
we  see  in  this  mathematical  illustration  of  it : — 
"The  wider  the  diameter  of  light,  the  larger  the 
circumference  of  darkness."  And  in  this  "  far  ben  " 
entry  of  it : — "  What  would  I  do  if  God  did  not 
justify  the  ungodly  !" 

There  is  a  fine  touch  in  this  ancient  history  that 
must  not  be  neglected.  When  the  fellow-servants 
of  this  unmerciful  servant  saw  him  so  forget  his 
own  ten  thousand  talents  as  to  take  his  hundred- 
pence  debtor  by  the  throat  and  cast  him  into 
prison,  they  were  both  sorry  and  angry,  and  went 


THE  UNMERCIFDL  SERVANT  203 

and  told  their  Lord  what  had  taken  place.     It  was 
an  excellent  saying  of  one  of  the  seven  wise  men  of 
Greece,  who,  when  he  was  asked  what  would  rid 
the  world  of  injuries,  answered: — "When  the  by- 
standers shall  resent  an  injury  as  keenly  as  he  does 
who  suffers  the  injury."     Now  those  fellow-servants 
did  that,  and  their  resentment  is  told  us  in  order 
that  we    may  imitate   them   in   their  resentment. 
That  would  largely  banish  all  injury  from  among 
ourselves,  if  we  would  all  do  what  that  wise  man 
of  Greece  advised,  and  what  those  fellow-servants 
actually  did.      If  we  would  put  ourselves  in  the 
places  of  the  men  who  are  injured  unjustly  by  their 
wicked  neighbour.     When  we  read  or  hear  of  any 
man  being  wickedly  attacked  by  tongue  or  by  pen, 
ten  to  one  all  the  offender's  fault  has  been  that  he 
has  disappointed,  or  offended,  or  crossed  the  self- 
love,  and  the  self-interest,  of  that  revengeful  and 
implacable  man.     And  that,  often  in  the  utmost 
innocence,  and  even  in  the  most  absolute  righteous- 
ness.    Ten  to  one  the  root  of  the  wicked  treatment 
is  nowhere  else  but  in  the  wicked  heart  of  that 
mortally    offended,    unforgiving,    and     revengeful, 
man.     Keep  well  in  mind,  my  brethren,  what  the 
wise  man  said,  when  you  see  any  man  or  any  cause 
truculently  attacked  by  tongue  or  by  pen.     Resent 
the  injury  as  if  it  were  done  to  yourself,  and  that 
will  somewhat  help    to    rid   the  world  of  all  such 
inj  uries,  and  of  all  such  inj  urious  men.    At  any  rate, 
be  you  not  such  injurious  men  yourselves.    Forgive, 
and  you  shall   be   forgiven.      For   with   the  same 
measure  that  you  mete  withal,  it  shall  be  measured 
to  you  again. 


204  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 


XXII 
THE  UNPROFITABLE  SERVANT 

CCORDING  to  some  ancient 
authorities  Bartholomew  was  a 
nobleman  of  GaHlee  before  he  was 
a  disciple  of  Christ.  Not  many 
mighty,  not  many  noble,  were 
called;  but  Bartholomew  was  called  as  if  to  show 
that  no  class  jf  men  is  shut  out  from  the  disciple- 
ship  and  the  apostleship  of  Christ  and  His  church. 
Bartholomew  was  a  sort  of  gentleman-farmer,  and, 
like  Matthew  the  publican,  he  made  a  supper  to 
his  neighbours  before  he  finally  parted  with  his 
patrimonial  estate.  And  it  was  while  they  were 
all  sitting  at  supper  that  this  incident,  so  it  is 
supposed,  took  place,  and  this  conversation  that 
completed  the  incident.  One  of  Bartholomew's 
men-servants  came  in  from  the  field,  put  off  his 
everyday  clothes,  girded  himself  with  a  waiting 
garment,  and  then  served  the  table  till  his  master 
and  all  his  master's  guests  had  risen  from  their 
supper.  Are  you  not  much  too  tired  ?  said  Peter 
sympathetically  to  the  servant.  Are  you  not 
doing  two  men's  work  ?      And  besides,  you  must 


THE  UNPROFITABLE  SERVANT        205 

be  faint  by  this  time  with  hunger.  O  no !  said 
Bartholomew's  serving  -  man  smiling,  I  am  only 
doing  my  bounden  and  delightful  duty  in  waiting 
on  my  good  master,  and  on  his  honoured  guests. 
And  then  I  will  sit  down  to  my  own  excellent 
supper  immediately.  "  Hear  ye  what  this  so  exem- 
plary servant  saith,"  said  their  Master  to  the  twelve, 
"  Verily,  I  say  unto  you.  Wheresoever  this  gospel 
shall  be  preached  in  the  whole  world,  there  shall 
also  this,  that  this  man  has  said  and  done,  be  told 
for  a  memorial  of  him." 

Our  Lord  applied  that  incident  in  its  first  in- 
tention to  the  twelve.  Their  Master  was  teaching 
and  training  the  twelve  by  everything  that  happened 
every  day  to  Him  and  to  them.  In  order  to  teach 
and  to  train  the  twelve  for  their  fast-coming  work, 
their  Master  found  tongues  in  trees,  books  in  the 
running  brooks,  sermons  in  stones,  and  this  great 
lesson  in  Bartholomew's  ploughman-waiter.  The 
twelve  had  this  lesson  taught  them  first,  and, 
after  them,  all  their  successors  are  taught  the  same 
lesson,  down  to  this  day.  That  willing-minded, 
many-handed,  ploughing-man  is  a  pattern  to  all 
preachers  and  pastors  to  the  end  of  time.  For  he 
worked  for  Bartholomew  in  season,  out  of  season. 
He  made  more  work  for  himself  when  all  his  proper 
work  was  done.  One  day,  so  Hermas  tells  us  in 
his  ancient  history,  when  this  servant  was  com- 
manded by  his  master  to  run  a  paling  round  a 
vineyard,  he  not  only  ran  the  paling  round  the 
vineyard,  but  he  dug  a  ditch  also  round  the  same 


206  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

vineyard,  and  then  he  gathered  the  stones  and  the 
thorns  out  of  it ;  and  such  things  he  did  always, 
till,  when  Bartholomew  became  a  disciple,  he  left 
one  whole  farm,  with  its  full  plenishing  on  it,  as  a 
bequest  to  this  ploughman  as  if  he  had  been  his 
own  son  and  his  true  heir.  He  is  a  fine  pattern  for 
all  ploughmen  and  for  all  feeders  of  their  masters' 
cattle ;  but  he  is  a  perfect  prototype  to  all  preachers 
and  pastors  especially.  Every  single  syllable  of 
this  scripture  is  a  study  for  us  who  are  ministers. 
Whatever  other  men  may  make  or  may  not  make 
of  this  fine  scripture,  no  minister  can  possibly  miss 
or  mistake  its  meaning  for  him,  or  get  away  from 
Chrisfs  all-seeing  eye  as  he  reads  it.  Christ  sets 
every  minister  before  this  ministerial  looking-glass, 
in  order  that  in  it  he  may  see  what  manner  of  minister 
he  now  is,  and  may  forecast  what  his  place  is  likely 
to  be  when  his  Master  sets  His  supper,  and  Himself 
serves  it,  for  all  His  ploughmen  and  for  all  His 
vine-dressers.  Only,  far  better  have  ten  plough- 
men's work  to  do  than  one  minister's  work.  A 
ploughman  may  finish  his  tale  of  furrows,  and  may 
then  give  his  fellow-servant  a  hand  in  feeding  his 
master's  cattle,  and  may  then  take  another  and  a 
willino;  hand  in  the  work  of  the  house,  after  which 
he  will  sit  down  to  his  supper  with  a  sense  of 
satisfaction  over  his  hard  day's  work.  But  I  defy 
any  apostle  of  Jesus  Christ  ever  to  have  that 
ploughman's  good  conscience.  And  much  less  any 
successor  of  an  apostle.  If  you  have  been  bold 
enough  to  be  numbered  among  the  true  successors 
of  the  apostles  you  have  taken  up  a  task  that  makes 


THE  UNPROFITABLE  SERVANT    207 

self-satisfaction  for  ever  impossible  to  you.  You 
may  write  your  sermon  over  and  over  again  as 
often  as  Dr,  Newman  wrote  his  masterpieces;  but 
as  long  as  you  have  not  torn  it  up  "fiercely," 
and  written  it  yet  again,  you  will  preach  it  on 
Sabbath  with  such  jolts  and  jars  in  it  as  will  make 
you  blush  and  stagger  before  your  people.  And 
you  may  visit  your  dying  parishioners  every  after- 
noon, and  your  sick,  and  aged,  and  infirm,  every 
ten  days,  but  you  will  never  be  able  to  say  this 
ploughman's  grace  over  your  supper  all  the  days 
and  nights  of  your  pulpit  and  pastoral  life.  For, 
"  the  wider  the  diameter  of  light,"  as  Dr.  Chalmers 
demonstrated  to  Dr.  Hanna's  parishioners  on  a 
blackboard  at  Skirling, — "  the  larger  the  circum- 
ference of  darkness." 

Our  Lord  tells  all  His  true  ministers  to  say  every 
night  that  they  are  unprofitable  servants,  and  they 
all  say  it.  But  at  the  same  time  He  solemnly  warns 
all  His  so-called  ministers  that  He  will  irrevocably 
pronounce  this  very  sentence  at  the  last  day  against 
some  of  them.  "  Cast  ye  that  slothful  and  un- 
profitable servant  into  outer  darkness  :  there  shall 
be  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth."  I  was  told 
about  such  a  threatened  minister  of  Christ  and  of 
His  Church  in  Scotland  only  last  night.  He  got  a 
good  congregation  committed  to  his  charge  when 
he  was  ordained.  But  at  the  present  moment  he 
has  neither  Sabbath  School,  nor  Prayer  Meeting, 
nor  Bible  Class,  nor  Endeavour  Society,  nor  Band 
of  Hope,  and  as  for  his  pastoral  work,  an  old  man 
died  the  other  day,  not  many  stonecasts  from  the 


208  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

manse,  who  had  not  seen  his  minister  for  two 
years.  Would  any  institution  set  up  among  men 
but  the  Church  of  Christ  endure  a  scandal  like 
that?  Would  the  army  endure  it?  Or  a  bank? 
Or  a  railway  ?  But  let  us  not  despair  of  any 
man.  Even  John  Mark  once  ran  away  from  his 
work.  And  yet,  long  after  Paul  had  denounced 
and  deposed  him,  we  have  the  Apostle  actually 
saying,  Take  Mark  and  bring  him  with  thee,  for 
he  is  profitable  to  me  for  the  ministry.  John 
Mark's  whole  story  is  told  first  in  the  Acts,  and 
then  in  the  Epistles,  just  to  guide  and  encourage 
the  Church  in  all  her  dealings  with  all  such  un- 
profitable ministers  as  Mark  once  was.  And  by 
far  the  best  way  of  dealing  with  all  our  unprofitable 
ministers  would  be  to  induce  and  enable  them  to 
visit  Bridge-of-Allan,  or  Dunblane,  or  Perth,  or 
Keswick,  or  Mildmay.  "We've  gotten  a  minister 
noo  ! ""  said  an  old  elder  to  me  after  his  hitherto  un- 
profitable minister  had  been  induced  and  enabled 
to  make  such  a  visit.  Or  send  him  a  Life  of  Wesley, 
or  of  Whitefield,  or  of  Boston,  or  of  Chalmers,  or 
of  Spurgeon.  Or  perhaps  better  than  all  that,  get 
an  evangelist  on  fire  to  spend  a  week  with  him  in 
his  parish.  "  Demas  apostatises,"  says  Bengel,  "  but 
Mark  recovers  himself."  If  you  have  the  means  and 
the  opportunity,  help  your  Mark  in  these  ways  to 
recover  himself,  and  he  may  live  to  write  a  gospel 
for  you  before  all  is  done. 

But  all  the  time,  though  this  character- sketch  is 
intended  by  our  Lord  for  us  ministers  in  the  first 


THE  UNPROFITABLE  SERVANT        209 

place,  it  is  not  intended  for  us  only.  Our  Lord's 
true  people  are  all  ministers  in  their  own  measure, 
as  Moses  prayed  they  might  all  be.  You  are  all 
true  and  direct  successors  of  the  disciples  and  the 
apostles.  And,  minister  or  people,  a  ploughman  or 
a  feeder  of  cattle,  putting  up  pailings,  digging 
ditches,  gathering  out  stones,  or  hewing  up  thorns, 
when  you  have  done  all,  end  all,  as  Bartholomew's 
ploughman  ended  his  long  and  arduous  day's  work. 
End  it  all  with  his  proverb  in  your  mouth,  and  in 
your  heart.  For  be  sure  of  this,  that  he  of  God's 
servants  who  thinks  that  he  has  fully  finished  and 
done  what  he  was  commanded  to  do,  that  man 
neither  knows  his  Master,  nor  his  Master's  com- 
mands, nor  does  he  know  the  a,  b,  c,  of  true 
knowledge  about  himself.  Well  may  Paul  ask, 
Where  is  boasting  then  ?  And  well  may  he  answer 
himself.  It  is  excluded.  And  there  can  be  no  better 
mark  of  the  mind  and  heart  of  a  true  and  an 
accepted  servant  of  God  than  just  that  he  says  in 
his  mind  and  in  his  heart,  after  every  new  and 
better  service  of  his,  that  he  is  the  most  unprofitable 
of  all  God's  servants.  "  The  more,"  says  Newman 
in  one  of  his  thrice- written  sermons,  "any  man 
succeeds  in  regulating  his  own  heart,  the  more  he 
will  discern  its  original  bitterness  and-  guilt."  And 
all  who  are  engaged  in  regulating  their  own  heart — 
which  is  our  Master's  whole  commandment — will 
subscribe  to  what  the  great  preacher  says  about 
that.  We  are  fresh  in  the  classes  from  Chalmers, 
and  Spurgeon,  and  Foster,  and  the  Wesleys,  and 
Whitefield,  and  we  found  them  all  subscribing  to 


210  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

Newman  and  to  Bartholomew's  plouohman.  But 
not  one  of  them  all  is  so  much  to  my  own  remorse- 
ful taste  in  this  matter,  as  is  Thomas  Shepard,  the 
Pilgrim  Father.  Not  one  of  them — passionate 
as  some  of  them  are — is  passionate  enough  for 
me,  till  I  come  to  the  author  of  The  Ten  Virgins. 
Shepard  is  the  most  heart-broken,  and  the  most 
heart-searching,  and  the  most  pungently  profitable, 
of  all  God's  heart-ploughing  servants  to  me. 

At  the  same  time,  while  all  that  is  true,  and  not 
even  Shepard  has  told  the  half  of  the  truth,  there  is 
another  side  to  all  that.  And  I  have  never  seen 
that  other  side  so  well  put  as  in  Marcus  Dods  of 
Belford's  Incarnation  of  the  Eternal  Word.  "A 
Book,"  says  the  noble-minded  and  generous-hearted 
Chalmers,  "  of  great  mental  wealth  and  great  mental 
vigour,  rich  in  scholarship,  and  of  a  massive  and  an 
original  power."  John  Foster  demands  more  case- 
preaching  in  our  evangelical  pulpits,  and  Marcus 
Dods's  case-page  is  exactly  what  Foster  wants. 
And  I  refer  to  that  page  because  it  so  restores  the 
true  balance  of  evangelical  and  experimental  truth 
in  this  matter  now  in  hand.  It  sometimes  happens, 
says  Dods,  that  the  true  Christian  is  so  far  from 
boasting  of  himself  that  he  goes  much  too  far  in 
the  opposite  direction.  He  dwells  far  too  much 
upon  the  defects  of  his  services,  or  upon  some 
impropriety  of  motive  that  had  mingled  with  them. 
He  feels  the  very  acutest  anguish  over  his  best  and 
his  holiest  performances.  But  there  is  often  a  certain 
taint  of  self-righteousness  in  all  that.     For  such  a 


THE  UNPROFITABLE  SERVANT         211 

sufferer  not  seldom  forgets  to  give  the  atonement, 
and  the  intercession  of  his  great  High  Priest  for 
him,  their  true  and  their  full  place.  He  will  not 
take  rest  nor  peace  of  mind  short  of  the  most 
absolute  perfection  in  his  services,  leaving  no  room 
for  the  rest  and  the  peace  that  Christ  offers,  and 
Himself  is,  to  all  His  true-hearted  servants.  You 
admit  and  believe  that  your  services  are  accepted 
of  God  in  and  through  the  merit  of  Christ  alone. 
And  yet  you  are  inconsolably  distressed  because 
you  still  detect  imperfections  in  them,  and  you  fear 
that  both  you  and  your  services  will  be  for  ever 
cast  out  of  God's  presence.  Now  what  is  that  but 
making  Christ  of  none  effect  as  your  High  Priest  ? 
What  is  that  but  making  Him  die,  and  r'me  again, 
and  intercede  for  you,  in  vain  ?  "  I  have  found," 
says  this  eminent  theologian  and  evangelical 
preacher,  "  this  mode  of  reasoning  successful  in 
enabling  the  mourner  to  detect  the  source  of  his 
causeless  sorrows,  and  to  recover  that  peace  of  mind 
which  results  from  a  simple  and  unhesitating  reliance 
upon  our  great  High  Priest,  for  the  pardon  of  all 
our  sins,  and  for  the  acceptance  of  all  our  services." 
Now,  it  is  all  this  that  explains  Paul,  and  justifies 
Paul,  and  makes  Paul  our  greatest  evangelical 
example,  where  he  says  with  such  assurance  of 
heart, — "  I  have  fought  a  good  fight,  I  have 
finished  my  course,  I  have  kept  the  faith.'"  The 
best  fight  Paul  ever  fought  was  not  with  wild  beasts 
at  Ephesus,  but  it  was  with  his  own  self-righteous 
heart.  It  was  fought  that  he  might  be  found  in 
Christ,  with  all  his  ever-increasing  self- discovery  and 


212  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

self-condemnation.  And  it  is  his  profound  grasp  of 
the  evangelical  faith,  that  enables  Paul  so  to  assure 
us  also  that  if  we  only  look  to  Christ  alone  as 
our  righteousness,  and  "  love  His  appearing,"  we 
shall  have  our  crown  of  righteousness  given  to  us 
also  at  that  great  day.  To  be  the  most  unprofitable 
of  servants  in  our  own  eyes;  to  sink  into  the  dust 
every  night  speechless  with  shame  and  pain  over 
another  all  but  lost  day ;  and  at  the  same  time  to  lie 
down  to  sleep  accepted  in  the  Beloved, — that  is  truly 
to  fight  the  good  fight  of  faith,  and  to  fight  it  with 
the  whole  armour  of  God  :  that  is  really  and  truly 
to  keep  the  faith  of  the  gospel  till  we  shall  hear  our 
Master's  voice  saying  over  us  also, — Well  done,  thou 
good  and  faithful  servant !  Enter  thou  into  the 
joy  of  thy  Lord. 


THE  LABOURER  WITH  THE  EVIL  EYE     213 


XXIII 
THE  LABOURER  WITH  THE  EVIL  EYE 

ESOP'S  dog  in  the   manger,  and  our 

Lord"'s   labourer  with    the   evil   eye, 

are  two  companion  portraits.    ^sop"'s 

famous  fable  taught  the  very  same 

lesson   in    ancient    Greece    that    our 

Lord's  present  parable  taught  to  Israel  in  His  own 

day,  and  still  teaches  to  Christendom  in  our  day. 

But  before  we  come  to  that,  there  are  one  or  two 
preliminary  lessons  that  we  are  intended  to  learn 
from  the  very  framework,  so  to  call  it,  of  this 
parable.  And  to  begin  with,  let  us  look  well  at 
this  unheard-of  husbandman.  For  the  like  of  this 
husbandman  has  never  been  seen  before  nor  since 
in  Galilee,  nor  in  Jewry,  nor  in  Samaria,  nor  any- 
where else.  This  singular  husbandman  plants  and 
reaps  his  vineyard  less  for  the  sake  of  his  vines, 
than  for  the  sake  of  his  vinedressers.  This  so 
altruistic  husbandman,  as  we  would  call  him, 
occupies  his  vineyard  not  at  all  for  his  own  ad- 
vantage, but  for  the  sole  advantage  of  his  labourers. 
Their  well-being  is  better  to  him  than  all  the  wine 
they  will  ever  produce.     Indeed,  and  to  let  out  the 


214  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

whole  truth  at  once,  this  husbandman  is  a  perfect 
portrait  of  God  the  Father,  drawn  by  the  skilful 
and  loving  hand  of  God  the  Son.  My  Father  is  the 
husbandman,  says  our  Lord  in  another  parable. 
And  it  must  be  so  here  also.  For  no  other  hus- 
bandman in  all  the  world  ever  went  out  at  all  hours 
of  the  day  to  hire  his  labourers,  and  at  the  same 
wages.  No  other  husbandman  could  afford  to  pay 
for  one  hour's  work  in  the  evening  of  the  day  as 
much  as  he  pays  for  the  burden  and  heat  of  the 
whole  day.  No ;  this  husbandman''s  portrait  is  no 
pure  invention  of  our  Lord's  sanctified  genius,  as 
some  of  His  other  portraits  are.  This  is  no  original 
stroke  of  our  Lord's  holy  and  fruitful  imagination. 
This  is  as  real  and  as  genuine  a  likeness  as  is  the 
likeness  of  the  snarling  labourer  himself.  Only,  the 
snarling  and  snapping  labourer  is  a  likeness  taken 
from  this  envious  and  spiteful  earth.  Whereas  this 
husbandman  is  the  speaking  likeness  of  Heavenly 
Love.     My  Father  is  the  husbandman. 

"  Which  went  out  early  in  the  morning  to  hire 
labourers  into  his  vineyard."  Ah,  me  !  With  what 
a  sharp  stroke  does  that  incidental-looking  state- 
ment come  home  to  those  of  us  the  morning  of 
whose  days  is  now  long  past  !  For  we  remember 
well  how  God  came  to  us  early  in  our  life,  and 
before  we  had  as  yet  hired  ourselves  out  to  other 
masters.  O  young  people,  if  you  would  only  believe 
it !  If  we  could  only  put  our  old  hearts  into 
your  young  bosoms !  How  fast  you  would  fall  in 
with  the  husbandman's  earliest  offer!  And  what 
a  life  of  blows,  and  starvation,  and  all  kinds  of  cruel 


THE  LABOURER  WITH  THE  EVIL  EYE     215 

usage,  would  you  thus  escape  !  Satisfy  our  children, 
O  Lord,  early  with  Thy  mercy,  that  they  may 
rejoice  and  be  glad  in  Thee  all  their  days. 

But  of  all  the  hours  of  this  husbandman"*s  labourer- 
hiring  days  it  is  His  eleventh  hour  that  comes  most 
home  to  my  own  heart.  It  is  His  eleventh  hour 
that  makes  all  us  old  men  to  exclaim — Who  is  a  God 
like  unto  Thee !  Whether  any  young  people  will 
be  won  to  God  through  this  scripture  to-night,  I 
do  not  know.  But  I  will  answer  for  some  of  the 
old.  For  He  came  to  us  also  at  the  first  hour  of 
the  day,  and  at  the  third  hour  of  the  day,  and  at 
the  sixth  hour,  and  at  the  ninth  hour.  But  if  He 
will  still  take  us  at  the  eleventh  hour,  we  are  His 
on  the  spot.  The  holy  child  Samuel,  and  many 
more  early-called,  and  early-employed,  children  of 
God  have  had  their  own  long  and  happy  lives  of 
highly  rewarded  labour.  But  the  thought  of  all 
such  holy  and  happy  labourers  is  a  positive  hin- 
drance and  stumbling-block  to  us.  All  such  wise 
and  good  men  are  a  rebuke  to  us  rather  than  an 
encouragement.  It  is  the  thief  on  the  cross  who, 
of  all  saved  men,  is  our  especial  example.  The 
thief  on  the  cross  was  the  great  eleventh -hour 
labourer  of  our  Lord's  day,  and  we  come  into  the 
vineyard  with  him.  At  the  end  of  our  evil  life  we 
come  with  him.  When  the  sins  of  our  youth,  and 
all  our  sins,  have  found  us  out  we  come  with  him. 
When  the  wages  of  our  life-long  service  of  sin  has 
become  death  to  us  also  we  come  with  him.  When 
this  mocking  taunt  is  thrown  in  our  teeth, — What 
fruit  have  ye  now  of  those  things  of  which  ye  are 


216  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

now  ashamed  ?  we  come  with  him.  Those  who  are 
still  in  the  early  morning  of  their  days  have  never 
heard  of  the  thief  on  the  cross.  They  have  never 
once  read  his  so  heart-encouraging  history.  It  is 
not  yet  written  for  their  learning.  Not  till  they 
are  as  old  as  we  are  will  they  be  able  to  read  the 
thiefs  so  heartening  history  as  we  read  it.  But  it 
is  now  the  eleventh  hour  with  us  as  it  was  with 
him,  and  we  come  with  him.  Since  God  takes  the 
bitterest  dregs  of  our  sinful  lives,  and,  like  this 
husbandman,  pays  so  altruistically  for  them,  we 
come.  Take  us,  O  God ;  O  do  Thou  take  us.  And 
where  our  sin  has  abounded,  let  Thy  grace  much 
more  abound. 

Is  thine  eye  evil  ?  said  the  good  husbandman  to 
the  murmuring  labourer.  Now,  an  "  evil  eye ""  is  j ust 
our  old  Bible  English  for  the  Latin  word  "  invidia." 
Is  thine  heart  so  selfish  and  so  envious  as  that? 
was  what  our  Lord  said  to  this  man  who  could  not 
enjoy  his  own  wages  for  grudging  and  growling  at 
his  neighbour's  wages.  ^Esop's  dog  in  the  manger 
had  his  own  bone,  and  he  did  not  deny  that  it  was 
both  a  big  and  a  sweet  bone.  But  he  was  such  a 
hound  at  heart  that  he  could  not  see  his  master's 
ox  beginning  to  munch  his  bottle  of  straw  in  his 
manger  without  snarling  and  snapping  at  him.  And 
no  more  did  this  dog  of  a  labourer  complain  that  his 
wages  were  not  quite  enough  for  all  the  work  he 
had  done.  All  his  unhappiness  lay  in  this  that  his 
neighbour  had  so  much  wages  to  take  home  with 
him  that  night  to  his  happy  wife  and  children.  He 
did  not  complain  that  he  was  underpaid  himself. 


THE  LABOURER  WITH  THE  EVIL  EYE     217 

All  his  misery  came  from  this,  that  his  fellow-servant 
was  so  much  overpaid.  Both  ^sop's  dog,  and  our 
Lord's  dog-like  labourer,  were  sick  of  that  strange 
disease, — their  neighbour's  health.  This  wretched 
creatm'e  was  so  full  of  an  evil  eye  that  every  one 
must  have  seen  it.  Even  if  he  hadheld  his  peace 
every  one  must  have  seen  his  evil  heart  running  out  of 
his  eye.  Even  if  you  were  a  perfect  stranger  to  me ; 
even  if  I  had  never  seen  you  before,  I  would  under- 
take to  tell  to  all  men  the  name  of  the  man  you 
both  envy  and  hate,  if  I  were  near  enough  to  see 
your  eye  when  your  rival  is  being  praised  and 
rewarded  in  your  presence.  Nay,  I  would  know 
it  from  the  very  tone  of  your  voice ;  aye,  from  the 
very  cough  in  your  throat.  For  envy,  like  love,  will 
out.  And,  as  our  Lord  is  always  saying  to  us,  it  will 
out  at  the  eye.  "As  to  the  motive  of  those  attacks 
on  Goethe,"  says  Heine,  "  I  know  at  least  what  it 
was  in  my  own  case.  It  was  my  evil  eye,"  Now, 
who  is  your  Goethe  ?  Who  is  your  fellow-labourer 
in  your  special  line  of  life  ?  "  Potter  envies  potter," 
says  Aristotle.  Who  is  your  companion-potter.? 
And  do  you  have  the  self-knowledge  that  even  poor 
Heine  had,  to  say  to  yourself  every  day — '  As  for 
these  dislikes,  and  aversions,  and  antipathies,  that 
I  feel  in  my  heart ;  as  well  as  for  these  depreciations 
and  contempts  that  pass  continually  through  my 
tongue  and  my  pen ;  I  know  what  their  motive  is  in 
my  own  case  at  least,  it  is  in  my  own  evil  eye.' 

Envy  so  parched  my  blood,  that  had  I  seen 
A  fellow  man  made  joyous,  thou  hadst  mark'd 
A  livid  paleness  overspread  my  cheek. 


218  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

Such  harvest  reap  I  of  the  seed  I  sow'd. 

O  man,  why  place  thy  heart  where  there  doth  need 

Exclusion  of  participants  in  good  ? 

If  he  is  rightly  reported,  a  Greek  commentator 
who  bears  a  great  name  makes  a  very  shallow  re- 
mark at  this  point.  He  says  that  it  is  difficult  for 
him  to  believe  that  any  man  who  is  really  within 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  himself,  and  is  in  its  service, 
and  is  receiving  its  rewards,  could  have  an  evil  eye 
at  another  man  for  his  work  and  for  his  wages  in 
that  kingdom.  A  more  stupid  remark  never  fell 
from  an  able  man's  pen.  A  more  senseless  and  self- 
exposing  annotation  was  never  made.  A  young 
friend  of  Mr.  George  Meredith's  once  came  to  him 
in  an  agony  of  pain  and  shame.  "  This  is  too  bad 
of  you  ! "  he  cried.  "  Willoughby  is  me  ! "  "  No, 
my  dear  fellow,"  said  the  great  writer, "  Willoughby 
is  all  of  us."  And  in  like  manner,  instead  of  it 
being  difficult  to  believe  that  there  was  ever  such 
a  doff  in  the  manger  as  this  murmuring;  labourer, 
we  are  all  such  dogs,  and  he  who  does  not  know 
and  confess  it — the  shell  is  yet  on  his  head.  Yes, 
Willoughby  is  all  of  us.  The  truth  is,  an  evil  eye, 
like  this  labourer's  evil  eye,  is  not  only  in  all  our 
hearts,  but  it  is  the  agony  of  every  truly  good 
man's  heart  that  it  is  so :  it  is  very  hell  itself  to 
every  truly  good  man's  heart  that  it  is  so :  to  every 
man's  heart  who  is  so  much  as  even  beginning  to 
know  what  true  goodness  really  is.  Instead  of  there 
being  no  envy  among  the  disciples  of  Jesus  Christ, 
and  among  those  who  labour  in  His  Father's  vine- 
yard, as  this  stupid  old  annotator  would  have  us 


THE  LABOURER  WITH  THE  EVIL  EYE    219 

believe ;  instead  of  that,  the  true  hellishness  of 
envy  is  never  tasted  by  any  man  till  he  is  far  up  in 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  is  full  of  its  mind  and 
spirit.  Dante  was  far  up  on  his  way  to  Paradise 
when  the  fine  dialogue  on  envy  and  on  love  took 
place.  Dante  sounds  his  deepest  depths  in  his 
heart-searching  cantos  on  envy,  even  as  his  most 
seraphic  flights  are  taken  in  his  cantos  on  love. 

"  Behold  we  have  forsaken  all,  and  followed 
Thee ;  what  shall  we  have  therefore  ? "  That 
miserable  speech  of  Peters,  which  gave  occasion 
to  this  parable,  utterly  vitiated  all  Peter's  previous 
work  for  his  Master,  however  hard  he  had  worked, 
and  however  much  he  had  forsaken  for  his  Master's 
cause.  For  it  is  yet  another  of  the  absolute  prin- 
ciples of  this  noble  vineyard  that  it  is  motive  in 
its  labourers  that  counts  with  its  Master.  It  is 
motive  alone  that  counts  with  Him,  far  more  than 
strength,  or  skill,  or  early  morning  promptitude  and 
punctuality,  in  His  labourers.  Unless  all  these 
admirable  qualities  are  informed  and  animated  by 
the  right  motives,  they  all  go  for  next  to  nothing 
in  this  so  singular  and  so  spiritual  vineyard.  "  An 
unexamined  life  is  no  true  life  at  all,"  Socrates  kept 
saying  continually,  as  he  both  examined  his  own 
motives  every  day  and  set  all  other  men  on  the 
daily  examination  of  their  own  motives.  We  know 
from  Peter's  own  mouth  what  his  motives  had  been 
in  his  discipleship  up  till  now.  And  Peter's  shame 
is  told  us  here  that  we  may  see  our  own  shame  in 
our  own  motives  also  and  up  till  now.     Why,  then. 


220  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

do  I  do  this  and  that  work  in  the  vineyard  ?  Why 
do  I  study  ?  Why  do  I  preach  ?  Why  do  I  visit 
the  sick  and  dying  ?  Why  am  I  an  elder  ?  Why 
am  I  a  deacon  ?  Why  do  I  subscribe  to  this  fund 
and  that  ?  Why  am  I  a  Sabbath-school  teacher  ? 
And  why  am  I  a  member  of  this  church  rather 
than  of  that  ?  It  is  our  mean  and  self-seeking 
motives  that  lurk  so  unexamined  in  our  hearts  that 
make  us  all  so  many  dogs  in  the  manger,  and  so 
many  envious  and  murmuring  labourers  in  the  vine- 
yard. And  as  it  was  at  Peter  and  his  miserable 
motives  that  his  Master  levelled  this  parable,  so  it 
is  at  us  and  at  our  miserable  motives,  and  at  the 
miserable  envies  and  jealousies  that  spring  out  of 
our  miserable  motives,  that  He  levels  this  same 
parable  in  this  house  to-night. 

And  now  in  summing  up  our  Lord  adds  this 
noble  lesson  to  all  His  other  noble  lessons  in  this 
noble  and  ennobling  scripture.  Many  are  called. 
He  adds,  but  few  are  chosen.  Take  them  all 
together.  He  says ;  take  those  called  at  the  first 
hour  of  the  day,  and  those  called  at  the  third  hour, 
and  those  cd  led  at  the  sixth  hour,  and  those  called 
at  the  ninth  hour,  and  those  called  at  the  eleventh 
hour — when  they  are  all  counted  up — many  are 
called.  But,  with  all  that,  the  chosen  men ;  the 
truly  choice  spirits  even  among  the  men  who  are 
called  ;  the  men  who  are  sincere  and  single  in  their 
motives ;  the  men  who  are  full  of  humility  about 
themselves,  and  about  their  work,  and  about  their 
wages ;  the  men  who  are  so  full  of  brotherly  love 
that  they  have  no  evil  eye  left  at  their  brother'^s 


THE  LABOURER  WITH  THE  EVIL  EYE     221 

good  work  or  good  wages,  hut  who  rather  rejoice 
in  all  the  good  things  that  fall  to  their  brother- 
labourer"'s  lot — such  men  are  not  many  even  in  the 
vineyard  of  heaven  itself.  There  are  many  in  that 
vineyard  who  say  with  Peter — What  shall  we  have, 
therefore  ?  But  they  are  few  who  work  at  all  hours 
of  the  day,  and  still  receive  their  wages  at  night 
with  pain  and  shame,  and  say  to  themselves  that 
they  are  the  most  unprofitable  of  all  their  fellow- 
servants.  They  are  the  few,  even  among  God's 
true  servants,  who  continually  look  on  all  they 
receive  and  possess  as  so  many  proofs  of  His 
singular  and  unparalleled  grace  and  goodness  to 
themselves.  They  are  the  few  who  so  think  and  so 
feel  and  so  speak  ;  but,  then,  they  are  the  very 
finest  and  the  very  choicest  of  all  His  saints.  They 
are  the  elect  of  His  elect.  Their  true  place  on 
earth  is  in  such  a  noble  vineyard  as  this,  and  they 
are  the  true  servants  of  such  a  noble  Master  as 
this.  My  brethren,  at  whatever  hour  you  enter 
this  vineyard,  early  or  late,  work  all  your  days  in 
this  fine  and  noble  spirit.  So  work  for  your  Master, 
and  so  love  your  neighbour  as  yourself,  that  you 
may  be  found  at  last,  not  only  among  the  many 
called,  but  among  the  few  chosen. 


222  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 


XXIV 

THE  CHILDREN  OF  CAPERNAUM  PLAY- 
ING AT  MARRIAGES  AND  FUNERALS 
IN  THE  MARKET-PLACE 

T  is  the  market-place  of  Capernaum  and 
it  is  the  cool  of  the  day.  The  work- 
men and  the  workwomen  of  the  town 
are  sitting  in  the  shade  after  the  work 
of  the  day  is  over,  and  the  children, 
having  been  released  from  school,  are  boisterously 
engaged  in  their  evening  games.  '  Come,'  cries  a 
leading  boy,  '  Come  and  let  us  have  a  marriage. 
This  here  will  be  the  bride's  house,  and  I  will  be 
the  bridegroom,  and  we  will  all  get  our  lamps 
lighted,  and  we  will  go  to  the  bride's  house  to  bring 
her  home  to  my  house.'  'No,'  shouts  another. 
'No.  We  had  a  marriage  yesterday,  when  you 
were  the  bridegroom.  Let  us  have  a  funeral  to-day. 
And  I  will  be  the  dead  man,  and  you  and  you  and 
you  will  take  me  up  and  carry  me  out  of  the  gate, 
and  all  the  rest  will  come  out  after  us  lamenting 
and  mourning  and  weeping.'  But  the  bridegroom 
would  not  have  a  funeral,  and  the  dead  man  would 
not  have  a  marriage,  till  a  quarrel  arose,  and  till 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  CAPERNAUM        223 

their  fathers  and  mothers  had  to  separate  their 
children  and  take  them  home.  And  till  One  who  had 
sat  in  the  market-place  and  had  seen  it  all,  arose 
and  went  out  into  the  hill-country  and  was  all  that 
night  alone  and  in  prayer.  And  as  He  looked  on 
Capernaum  He  wept  and  said,  "  And  thou,  Caper- 
naum, whereunto  shall  I  liken  thee,  but  to  thine 
own  children  playing  in  the  market-place,  and  calling 
to  their  fellows,  and  saying — We  have  piped  unto 
you,  and  ye  have  not  danced :  we  have  mourned 
unto  you,  and  ye  have  nc  \  lamented.'' 

The  childhood  shows  the  man. 
As  morning  shows  the  day, — 

sings  Milton  about  the  childhood  of  our  Lord.  And 
that  childhood  scene  in  the  market-place  of  Caper- 
naum already  shows  the  coming  manhood  and 
womanhood  of  those  contending  children.  And  it 
shows,  not  their  childhood  and  manhood  and 
womanhood  alone,  but  our  own  childhood  and 
manhood  and  womanhood  also.  The  self-will  and 
the  bad  humour  and  the  obstinacy  and  the  fault- 
finding of  those  Capernaum  children  in  the  market- 
place, and  of  their  parents  in  the  synagogue,  are  all 
held  up  before  us  in  this  glass  of  God,  looking  into 
which  we  are  instructed  to  see,  not  our  own  children 
only,  but  our  grown-up  selves  also.  Just  because 
a  marriage  was  proposed  by  one  playfellow  his 
neighbour  would  not  have  a  marriage.  He  would 
have  a  funeral.  His  little  wilful  heart  at  once  rose 
up  within  him  to  resist  his  neighbour's  proposal. 
He  would  have  a  funeral  that  day  and  in  nothing 


224  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

but  a  funeral  would  he  take  any  part.  The  marriage 
game  was  surely  a  far  more  delightful  game  than 
the  funeral  game.  But  it  was  not  delight  that  he 
was  now  set  upon ;  it  was  his  own  will  and  his  own 
way.  "  The  cause  is  in  my  will,'"  said  Caesar.  "  I 
will  not  come.  Let  that  be  enough  to  satisfy  the 
senate."  And  it  was  enough  that  this  little  Caesar 
of  Capernaum  said  that  he  would  not  have  a 
marriage  but  a  funeral.  Immense  libraries  have 
been  written,  first  and  last,  on  the  will:  and  that 
by  our  very  ablest  and  very  best  men.  But  behind 
Caesar's  will  in  Rome,  and  behind  this  little  tyrant's 
will  in  Capernaum,  no  philosopher  or  theologian  of 
them  all  has  ever  been  able  to  go.  We  see  self-will 
every  day  and  we  taste  the  bitter  fruits  of  it  every 
day.  But  why  the  human  will  should  be  so  incur- 
ably evil,  that  is  past  the  wit  of  our  wisest  men 
to  find  out.  An  evil  will  is  the  true  mystery  of 
iniquity,  till  the  whole  world  is  one  huge  market- 
place of  Capernaum,  and  all  owing  to  your  evil  will 
and  mine.  I  will  not  play  with  you  unless  I  get 
my  own  will  and  way  in  everything.  And  you  will 
not  play  with  me  unless  you  get  your  own  will  and 
way  in  everything.  "  He  is  a  very  nice  man  when 
he  gets  his  own  way,"  said  one  of  yourselves  the 
other  day  when  he  was  praising  one  of  yourselves. 
And  Elizabeth,  as  we  are  told,  was  a  very  nice  queen 
when  her  bishops  tuned  their  pulpits  to  keep  time 
to  her  dancing.  But  when  they  tuned  their  pulpits 
to  the  truth  she  showed  herself  a  very  virago.  She 
would  play  at  churches  with  them  every  day,  and 
all  day,  if  they  would  but  play  to  please  her.     But 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  CAPERNAUM       225 

if  they  did  not,  they  would  know  the  consequences. 
To  how  many  things,  both  in  church  and  in  state, 
and  both  at  home  and  at  play,  has  Caesar  given  us 
the  one  true  and  complete  key — "  The  cause  is  in 
my  will.     Let  that  satisfy  the  senate." 

It  was  the  mother  of  the  dead  man  of  last  night 
who  came  with  her  son  in  her  hand  to  our  Lord  as 
He  was  preparing  to  preach  in  the  market-place 
next  morning.  '  Master, ""  she  said,  '  I  saw  all  Thy 
sorrow  and  shame  over  my  son  last  night.  I  watched 
Thee  all  the  time  and  I  knew  all  that  was  in  Thy 
thoughts  about  him.  But  they  were  not  such  sad 
thoughts  as  mine  were.  And  now  I  have  brought 
my  little  son  that  Thou  mayest  lay  Thy  hand  upon 
him  and  make  him  a  new  heart.  And  if  not,  I 
would  rather  he  had  never  been  born ;  I  would 
rather  see  him  a  dead  man  indeed,  and  carried  out 
of  the  city  on  his  dead  bier,  than  live  to  see  him 
grow  up  as  he  began  last  night.'  And  Jesus  had 
pity  on  her.  And  He  laid  His  hand  on  her  little 
son's  head,  and  said,  '  Blessed  be  the  son  of  such  a 
mother.  For  of  such  mothers,  and  of  the  sons  of 
such  mothers,  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

They  that  have  my  Spirit, 
These,  said  He,  are  mine.' 

Now  my  brethren,  if  you  and  I  have  grown  up,  and 
are  growing  old,  without  having  been  blessed  of 
God  with  a  new  heart :  that  is  to  say  with  a  gentle, 
humble,  meek,  affable,  and  complying  heart :  if  we 
are  come  to  manhood  and  womanhood  with  a  hard 
and   stony  heart:   a   proud,  self-willed,  obstinate. 


226  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

despotic,  and  tyrannical  heart  still  within  us — how 
is  it  all  to  end  ?  and  when  ?  and  where  ?  We 
cannot  be  content,  surely,  to  go  on  and  on  with 
such  an  evil  heart  within  us,  making  ourselves 
miserable,  and  making  all  who  have  to  do  with  us 
miserable  also.  And  if  the  New  Testament  is  true ; 
if  we  suddenly  die  with  such  a  heart  still  in  us,  it 
will  be  to  be  devils  for  ever  ourselves,  and  the 
playfellows  of  devils  for  ever.  If  we  are  hardening 
our  hearts  against  God  and  man,  and  are  set  on 
having  our  own  will  in  everything ;  if  we  go  about 
tyrannising  over  everybody,  and  making  everybody 
suffer  from  our  insolent  temper,  what  is  there  in 
death,  or  after  death,  to  give  such  as  we  are  a  new 
heart  ?  There  are  abundance  of  promises  in  death  and 
after  death  to  the  meek,  and  to  the  sweet,  and  to  the 
submissive,  and  to  the  self-surrendering,  and  to  the 
self-sacrificing.  But  I  have  not  found  any  such 
promises  and  consolations  to  the  high-minded,  and 
the  sour-tempered,  and  the  quarrelsome,  and  the  self- 
asserting — have  you  ?  I  have  met  with  not  a  few 
warnings  and  threatenings  and  divine  denunciations 
against  such,  both  in  this  world  and  in  the  world  to 
come.  And  you  must  have  met  with  the  same.  And 
to  all  such  among  you,  amid  scenes  of  misery  caused 
by  your  wicked  temper  and  your  tyranny,  your  own 
conscience  must  have  told  you  to  your  face  that 
you  are  the  man.  Now  what  are  you  doing  to 
alter  that  ?  Or  are  you  doing  anything  ?  And  are 
you  content  to  go  on  as  you  are,  with  such  a  heart 
as  yours  and  you  taking  no  step  to  mend  it  ?  Yes, 
what  step  are  you  taking  to  mend  it?     For  even 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  CAPERNAUM      227 

if  you  came  to  Him  to  wliom  that  Capernaum 
mother  came,  He  would  only  say  to  you  what  He 
said  to  her,  and  what  He  said  to  her  far-off  fathers 
and  mothers  through  His  servant  Ezekiel.  "  Repent," 
He  will  say  to  you,  "  and  turn  yourselves  from  all 
your  transgressions;  so  your  iniquity  will  not  be 
your  ruin.  Cast  away  from  you  all  your  transgres- 
sions, whereby  ye  have  transgressed,  and  make  you 
a  new  heart,  and  a  new  spirit,  for  why  will  you  die? 
For  I  have  no  pleasure  in  the  death  of  him  that 
dieth,  saith  the  Lord  God;  wherefore  turn  yourselves, 
and  live  ye."  Come  away  then,  and  let  us  look  at 
some  of  the  times  and  the  places  when  and  where 
you  must  set  about  making  yourselves  a  new  heart ; 
that  is  to  say,  a  broken,  contrite,  chastened,  tender, 
yielding,  companionable,  heart. 

"  How  shall  a  man  like  me  ever  become  of  an 
affectionate  and  companionable  temper  ?"  asks 
Epictetus,  the  Stoic  professor,  at  his  students  in  his 
lecture-room  in  Nicopolis.  And  this  is  the  answer 
he  gives  himself  in  their  hearing.  I  take  his  answer 
out  of  the  notebook  of  one  who  was  present.  And 
I  take  Epictetus  because  our  Lord  said,  "  And  thou, 
Capernaum ;  they  shall  come  from  the  east  and  the 
west,  and  shall  sit  down  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
while  many  of  the  children  of  the  kingdom,  such  as 
thou  and  thy  children  are,  shall  in  nowise  enter  into 
it."  "  How,"  asks  the  old  Stoic,  "  shall  a  man  like 
me  ever  become  of  a  truly  noble  and  divine  disposi- 
tion ?"  And  he  answers  himself  in  this  way.  "Every 
man  is  improved  by  the  corresponding  acts.  The 
carpenter  is  improved  by  the  acts  of  carpentry.    And 


228  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

the  orator  is  improved  by  the  acts  of  oratory.  But 
if  a  carpenter  slovens  over  his  work  he  will  never 
become  a  good  carpenter.  And  if  an  orator  does 
not  speak  better  and  better  every  time  he  rises  to 
his  feet  he  will  soon  be  hissed  out  of  the  pulpit. 
And  in  religion  and  morals  it  is  the  very  same  thing. 
Thus,  modest  actions  preserve  and  improve  the 
already  modest  man,  and  immodest  actions  destroy 
him.  Shamelessness  strengthens  the  shameless  man, 
faithlessness  the  faithless  man,  abusive  words  the 
abusive  man,  angry  words  and  angry  acts  make  the 
man  more  and  more  a  man  of  anger,  and  avaricious 
acts  end  in  making  a  man  a  miser."  And  the  great 
Stoic  has  line  upon  line,  and  precept  upon  precept 
to  his  scholars  in  this  all-important  matter.  For 
in  another  page  of  Arrian's  notebook  I  come  upon 
this — "Every  habit  and  faculty  is  maintained  and 
increased  by  the  corresponding  actions.  The  habit 
of  walking  by  walking,  and  the  habit  of  running  by 
running.  If  you  would  be  a  good  reader,  read  ;  if 
a  good  writer,  write.  Lie  down  ten  days  and  then 
attempt  a  long  walk,  and  you  will  see  how  your 
power  of  walking  has  gone  from  you.  Generally, 
then,  if  you  would  make  anything  a  part  of  your 
character,  practise  it.  When  you  have  been  again 
angry  to-day,  you  have  not  only  been  again  angry 
to-day,  but  you  are  all  that  the  more  open  to  anger 
to-mori'ow.  Till  to-day's  anger,  and  to-morrow's 
anger,  and  the  next  day's  anger,  will  all  unite  to 
make  you  an  absolute  savage  to  all  who  live  near 
you.  But  if  you  wish  not  to  be  such  a  savage,  do 
not   do  the  acts  of  a  savage,  but  the  acts   of  a 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  CAPERNAUM       229 

gentleman.  Do  not  feed  your  savage  temper  by 
savage  words  and  savage  actions.  Keep  your  bad 
temper  in  hand,  till  you  can  count  the  days  on  which 
you  have  not  been  angry.  I  used  to  be  in  a  passion 
every  day  at  something  or  somebody,  now  every 
second  day,  then  every  third,  then  every  fourth  day. 
But  if  you  have  intermitted  thirty  days  without  an 
explosion  of  anger,  make  a  thanksgiving  sacrifice  to 
God.  If  you  escape  for  two  or  three  months,  be 
assured  that  you  are  in  a  very  good  way.  Great  is 
the  combat,  divine  is  the  work  ;  it  is  for  freedom, 
it  is  for  happiness,  it  is  for  holiness.  Remember 
God,  and  go  on."     So  far  Epictetus. 

Are  you  then  a  self-willed,  proud-hearted,  intole- 
rant, and  tyrannical,  man?  Or  are  you  a  virago 
of  a  woman  ?  And  would  you  be  a  gentleman  and 
a  gentlewoman  ?  Epictetus  has  told  you  the  way 
to-night.  Butler  has  told  you  the  same  way  in 
your  own  tongue,  but  Epictetus  was  beforehand 
by  two  thousand  years.  Gentlemanly  acts  will 
end  in  making  you  a  gentleman,  and  nothing 
else  will.  No  man  was  ever  born  a  gentleman  ; 
no  mere  man.  But  multitudes  have  made  them- 
selves gentlemen  and  gentlewomen.  And  that  on 
the  Epictetus-principle  of  acts,  habits,  character. 
The  next  time,  then,  that  opinions  and  proposals 
differ  where  you  are  concerned,  seize  you  this 
assurance,  that  God  Himself  has  brought  about 
that  difference  of  opinion,  and  those  conflicting 
proposals,  with  His  eye  set  on  you.  Opinions  and 
proposals  are  nothing  to  Him  :  but  you,  and  your 
moral  character,  and  your    Christian  conduct  are 


230  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

everything  to  Him.  To-night  yet,  and  before  you 
have  slept  this  scripture  of  His  off  your  mind, 
and  to-morrow,  to  a  certainty,  two  opinions  and  two 
proposals  will  be  tabled  before  you,  and  that  in 
order  to  put  it  to  the  proof  if  you  have  paid  any 
attention  to-night.  In  order  to  see  if  your  visit  to 
the  playground  of  Capernaum,  and  to  the  mountain 
of  prayer  above  Capernaum,  has  done  you  any 
good.  Be  you  ready.  Be  you  prepared.  Play 
you  the  man  that  moment.  If  it  is  a  marriage 
that  is  proposed,  put  yourself  at  their  disposal. 
Say  that  you  will  undertake  to  see  the  registrar 
and  the  minister.  Do  not  mention  the  other 
engagements  you  had  made  for  that  week  and  that 
day.  But  put  them  all  off  till  you  have  seen  this 
marriage  carried  smoothly  and  sweetly  through. 
And  after  you  have  seen  them  away  to  their  honey- 
moon, you  will  be  far  happier  in  your  lonely  lodging 
than  if  you  had  been  the  bridegroom  himself.  Do 
it  and  see  !  At  any  rate,  there  will  be  better  than 
bridegroom -joy  in  heaven  over  you  because  this 
playground  of  Capernaum  has  not  been  lost  upon 
you  to-night. 


THE  SAMARITAN  WHO  SHEWED  MERCY     231 


XXV 

THE   SAMARITAN   WHO   SHEWED 
MERCY 

CERTAIN  man  went  down  from  Jeru- 
salem to  Jericho,  and  fell  among 
thieves,  which  stripped  him  of  his 
raiment,  and  wounded  him,  and  de- 
parted, leaving  him  half  dead.  And 
by  chance  there  came  down  a  certain  priest  that 
way  ;  and  when  he  saw  him,  he  passed  by  on  the 
other  side.  And  likewise  a  Levite,  when  he  was  at 
the  place,  came  and  looked  on  him,  and  passed  by 
on  the  other  side.  But  a  certain  Samaritan,  as  he 
journeyed,  came  where  he  was:  and  when  he  saw 
him,  he  had  compassion  on  him,  and  went  to  him, 
and  bound  up  his  wounds,  pouring  in  oil  and  wine, 
and  set  him  on  his  own  beast,  and  brought  him 
to  an  inn,  and  took  care  of  him.  And  on  the 
morrow,  when  he  departed,  he  took  out  two  pence, 
and  gave  them  to  the  host,  and  said  unto  him, 
Take  care  of  him  :  and  whatsoever  thou  spendest 
more,  when  I  come  again,  I  will  repay  thee. 

"  And,  by  chance,  there  came  down  a  certain  priest 
that  way,"  says  our  Lord,  telling  the  story  after 


232  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

the  manner  of  men.  He  knew  better  than  any  one 
that  there  is  nothing  left  to  "  chance  "  in  this  world  ; 
not  even  the  fall  of  a  sparrow  ;  not  even  a  hair  of 
our  head.  "  It  will  be  obvious  to  the  intelligent 
reader,"  says  Thomas  Boston's  son  in  editing  his 
father's  priceless  Aidohiograpliy^  "  tliat  the  radical 
principle  upon  which  this  narration  is  founded,  is 
that  God  hath  preordained  whatsoever  comes  to  pass. 
This  principle  the  author  believed  with  all  his 
heart,  it  was  often  an  anchor  to  his  soul,  and  every 
minister  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  is  bound,  by 
his  subscription  and  ordination  vows,  to  maintain 
it.  This,  kept  in  view,  will  account  for  the  author's 
ascribing  to  an  over-ruling  Providence  many  inci- 
dents, which  some  may  think  might  be  resolved 
into  natural  causes."  I  do  not  know  what,  all,  this 
priest's  ordination  vows  may  have  been.  But  I  am 
quite  sure  that  if  any  one  had  asked  him  in  the 
temple  yesterday  saying,  Master,  what  shall  I  do 
to  inherit  eternal  life .?  He  would  have  answered 
him.  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God,  with  all 
thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy 
strength,  and  with  all  thy  mind ;  and  thy  neighbour 
as  thyself.  But  the  pity  with  this  priest  was,  that 
as  soon  as  he  got  his  temple  duties  over  yesterday, 
he  forgot  all  that  about  his  neighbour  till  he  put 
on  his  gown  again  next  Sabbath  morning  in  Jericho. 
And  thus  it  was  that  he  was  on  his  way  down  to 
Jericho  that  day  when,  by  chance,  he  came  on  a 
half-dead  man  on  the  way-side.  Being  a  temple 
priest,  he  should  have  said  to  himself  as  he  set  out 
on  his  journey, — 


THE  SAMARITAN  WHO  SHEWED  MERCY     233 

The  Lord  shall  keep  thy  soul :  He  shall 

Preserve  thee  from  all  ill. 
Henceforth  thy  going  out  and  in 

God  keep  for  ever  will. 

And  then  he  should  have  been  making  the  "bloody 
pass  "  safe  to  himself  and  to  others  by  singing  to 
himself, — 

Shew  me  thy  ways,  O  Lord  : 

Thy  paths  O  teach  thou  me  : 
And  do  thou  lead  me  in  thy  truth. 
Therein  my  teacher  be. 

For  thou  art  God  that  dost 

To  me  salvation  send, 
And  I  upon  thee  all  the  day 

Expecting  do  attend. 

But  not  setting  out  in  that  way,  and  not  singing 
to  himself  in  that  way,  the  priest  missed  his  chance 
of  salvation  and  of  eternal  life, — for  that  day  at 
any  rate. 

TheLevite  who  followed  him  would  seem,  for  one 
thing,  to  have  had  somewhat  more  curiosity  than 
the  priest,  and  to  have  come  all  that  the  nearer  that 
day  to  eternal  life.  The  priest  saw  enough  at  the 
first  glance  to  suffice  and  satisfy  him  :  but  the  Levite 
stopped  and  went  to  the  side  of  the  road  and 
looked  at  the  half-murdered  man,  but  that  one 
look  was  enough  for  him  also,  for  he  also  passed 
by  on  the  other  side.  If  the  half-dead  man's  eyes 
were  not  entirely  torn  out  by  the  thieves,  and  if  he 
was  able  to  open  his  eyes  for  a  moment  as  he  heard 
the  coming  footsteps,  how  his  heart  must  have 
beat  back  to  life  again  at  the  sight  of  the  priest 


234  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

and  the  Levite.  When  a  beggar  at  one  of  our 
road-sides  sees  a  minister  coming  along  with  his 
black  clothes  and  his  white  neckcloth,  the  poor 
wretch  feels  sure  that  he  will  not  be  passed  by  this 
time  without  a  kind  word  at  any  rate.  But  his 
disappointment  is  all  the  more  when  the  man  of 
God  looks  the  other  way  and  passes  by  in  silence 
on  the  other  side. 

Now,  nobody  who  knew  what  the  Samaritans 
were  would  have  wondered  at  one  of  them  setting 
out  on  a  journey  any  morning  and  every  morning 
without  a  Psalm,  and  then  coming  "  by  chance  "  on 
this  man  and  that,  all  the  day,  and  passing  them 
by  without  a  thought.  But  however  he  set  out, 
psalm  or  no  psalm,  and  however  this  Samaritan  was 
occupied  as  he  rode  down  the  Jericho-pass,  as  God 
would  have  it,  Behold,  there  is  a  half-dead  Jew 
lying  in  the  ditch  at  the  roadside.  Were  ever  any 
of  you  as  full  as  you  could  hold  of  mortal  hatred 
at  any  enemy  of  yours?  At  any  enemy  of  your 
church  or  your  country .?  Were  you  ever  in  such 
a  diabolical  state  of  mind  at  any  man,  or  at  any 
race  of  men,  that  it  would  have  made  you  glad  to 
see  him  lying  wounded  and  half  dead.?  Well,  that 
was  the  very  way  that  the  Jews  and  the  Samaritans 
felt  to  one  another  in  our  Lord's  day.  They  had 
nothing  short  of  your  mortal  hatred  at  one  another. 
And,  had  that  been  a  half-dead  man  of  Samaria,  it 
would  have  been  nothing  wonderful  to  see  the  Samari- 
tan traveller  doing  all  that  to  his  fellow-countryman. 
But  to  do  it  to  a  Jew, — that  is  why  this  Samaritan's 
name  is  so  celel)rated   in  heaven.     What  do  you 


THE  SAMARITAN  WHO  wSHEWED  MERCY     235 

think  would  be  the  thoughts  of  the  half- dead  Jew 
as  he  saw  his  own  temple-kinsmen  passing  by  on 
the  other  side,  and  then  saw  this  dog  of  a  Samaritan 
leaping  off  his  mule  ?  What  would  he  think  and 
say  all  night  as  he  saw  this  excommunicated 
Samaritan  lighting  the  candle  to  pour  oil  and  wine 
into  his  wounds  and  watching  all  night  at  his 
bedside  ?  That  Samaritan  mule  hobbling  down  the 
Jericho-pass  with  that  half-dead  burden  on  its  back 
always  reminds  me  of  Samuel  Johnson  hobbling 
along  to  Bolt  Court  with  the  half- dead  street- 
walker on  his  back  and  laying  her  down  on  old 
Mrs.  Williams's  bed  to  nurse  her  back  to  life.  The 
English  Dictionary  has  long  been  superseded,  and 
it  is  only  one  enterprising  student  of  the  best 
English  literature  here  and  there  who  goes  back  to 
The  Lives  of  the  Poets.  But  that  immortal  picture 
of  that  midnight  street  in  London,  and  that  im- 
mortal picture  of  that  bloody  pass  of  Adummim, 
will  be  sister  portraits  for  ever  among  the  art- 
treasures  of  the  new  Jerusalem.  And  if  you  love 
your  neighbour  as  yourself  in  this  city,  as  this 
Samaritan  and  Dr.  Johnson  did  in  Jericho  and  in 
London,  you  will  yet  see  those  two  portraits  and 
the  originals  of  them  with  your  own  eyes,  in  the 
art-galleries  of  the  heavenly  country. 

Then  said  Jesus  to  the  lawyer,  Go,  and  do  thou 
likewise.  But  he,  willing  to  justify  himself,  began, 
lawyer-like,  to  raise  speculative  and  casuistical 
questions,  instead  of  immediately  setting  about  to 
do  his  duty.  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as 
thvself."     'Yes,'  said  the  man  of  law,  'but  who  is 


236  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

my  neighbour?  Distinguish,  and  clear  up  to  me 
who,  exactly,  my  neighbour  is,'  said  this  subtle 
casuist.  My  brethren,  all  men  are  your  neighbours. 
Absolutely  all  men.  Absolutely  every  man.  But 
more  immediately  every  stripped,  and  wounded, 
and  half-dead,  man.  And  still  more,  every  enemy 
of  yours.  Yes,  absolutely  every  man.  For,  who  is 
so  unrobbed,  and  so  unwounded,  and  so  full  of  life 
and  love,  as  not  to  stand  in  need  of  your  brotherly 
love,  and  of  every  kind  of  life-giving  office  at  your 
hands  ?  Who  is  there  on  the  face  of  this  earth 
who  does  not  need,  and  will  not  welcome,  the  oil 
and  the  wine  of  your  loving  kindness  poured  into 
his  many  wounds.?  No  man.  No  woman.  It  is 
not  only  in  the  bloody  pass  of  Adummim  and  on 
the  midnight  street  of  London  that  your  neighbours 
are  to  be  come  on  wounded  and  half-dead :  they 
are  to  be  found  everywhere.  Many  who  have  their 
own  beasts  to  ride  upon,  and  who  are  quite  able  to 
pay  their  own  bill  to  the  inn-keeper  and  your  bill 
also :  many  such  stand  in  as  much  need  of  your 
love  and  your  services  of  love  as  did  that  half-dead 
Jew  on  the  road  to  Jericho.  A  kind  thought,  a 
kind  look,  a  kind  word,  a  kind  deed ;  carry  about 
that  oil  and  that  wine  with  you,  and  you  will  not 
lack  wounded  and  half-dead  men  and  women  to 
bless  the  day  on  which  they  first  saw  your  face  and 
heard  your  voice. 

But  some  lawyer  here,  willing  to  justify  himself, 
will  stand  up  to  tempt  me,  and  will  demand  of  me 
whether  I  mean  to  deny  all  my  late  sermons  on  the 
Romans  ?   And  to  teach  to-night  that  this  Samaritan 


THE  SAMARITAN  WHO  SHEWED  MERCY     237 

was  justified  before  God  simply  because  of  this  good 
deed  of  his  ?  I  quite  admit  that  both  our  Lord,  and 
His  Apostle,  sometimes  teach  economically,  and 
paradoxically,  and  one-sidedly  even,  on  occasion. 
All  the  same, — go  you  and  do  you  as  this  good 
Samaritan  did.  And  if  death  and  judgment  over- 
take you  walking  beside  your  mule  on  the  way  to 
the  inn  at  Jericho :  or  if  your  Lord  summons  you 
to  give  in  your  account  when  you  are  up  smoothing 
the  pillow  of  a  half-dead  enemy  of  yours ;  I  would 
far  rather  take  your  chance  of  eternal  life  than  if 
death  and  judgment  overtook  you  still  debating, 
however  Calvinistically,  about  your  evangelical 
duty.     Yes  :  Go  at  once  to-night  and  do  likewise. 

Spurgeon  says  somewhere  that  wherever  his  text 
is,  and  whatever  his  text  is,  he  will  find  his  way, 
somehow,  to  Jesus  Christ  before  he  leaves  his  text. 
Now  it  is  not  to  go  far  from  this  text  to  go  to  Him 
who  is  The  Good  Samaritan  indeed.  It  has  been 
said  of  Goethe  that,  like  this  priest  and  this  Levite, 
he  kept  well  out  of  sight  of  stripped,  and  wounded, 
and  half-dead,  men.  I  hope  it  is  not  true  of  that 
great  intellectual  man.  At  any  rate  it  is  not  true 
of  Jesus  Christ.  For  He  comes  and  He  goes  up 
and  down  all  the  bloody  passes  of  human  life, 
actually  looking  for  wounded  and  half-dead  men, 
and  for  none  else.  Till  He  may  well  bear  the 
name  of  The  one  and  only  entirely  Good  and  True 
Samaritan.  They  are  here  to  whom  He  has  said  it 
and  done  it.  "  When  I  passed  by  thee,  and  saw 
thee  wounded  and  half  dead,  I  said  unto  thee  when 
thou  wast  in  thy  blood,  Live ;  yea,  I  said  unto  thee 


238  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

when  thou  wast  in  thy  blood,  Live.  Now  when  I 
passed  by  thee,  and  looked  upon  thee,  behold,  thy 
time  was  a  time  of  love.  Then  washed  I  thee  with 
water,  and  I  anointed  thee  with  oil."  And  we 
ourselves  are  the  proof  of  it.  That  we  are  here 
to-night,  in  the  land  of  the  living  and  in  the  place 
of  hope,  is  the  sufficient  proof  of  it.  We  are  as  it 
were  in  the  inn  of  Jericho  to-night.  But  to-morrow 
He  will  come  back  and  will  repay  whatever  they 
are  to-night  spending  here  upon  us.  And  as  soon 
as  we  are  able  to  be  removed  He  will  come  and  take 
us  home  with  Him,  for  a  greater  and  a  better  and 
a  bigrger-hearted  than  the  best  Samaritan  is  here. 
He  will  take  us  to  that  land  with  Him  where  no 
man  falls  among  thieves  and  where  they  rob  not 
nor  wound  nor  leave  a  man  half-dead.  Go,  said 
His  Father  to  Him,  and  love  Thy  neighbour  and 
Thine  enemy  as  Thyself.  And  instead  of  wishing 
to  justify  Himself;  instead  of  saying,  But  who  is 
My  neighbour — you  know  what  He  said,  and  what 
He  did,  and  to  whom  He  said  it  and  did  it.  And 
we  who  were  in  the  bloody  pass,  and  were  stripped, 
and  wounded,  and  half-dead,  we  are  the  proof  of  it, 
and  will  for  ever  be  the  proof  and  the  praise  of  it. 

And  now,  my  brethren,  is  it  not  a  cause  of  the 
profoundest  praise  and  thanksgiving  to  Almighty 
God  that  peace  has  come,  and  that  there  is  not 
a  man  on  the  face  of  the  whole  earth  that  we  any 
more  wish  to  see  wounded  and  half-dead  ?  And 
must  it  not  be  a  sweet  thing  to  our  King  to  think 
about  on  his  bed,  and  to  all  his  Royal  House,  that 
he  has  no  enemy  now  to  his  throne  and  sceptre  and 


THE  SAMARITAN  WHO  SHEWED  MERCY     ^39 

crown  in  all  the  wide  world.  And  that  is  so,  because 
He,  The  Good  Samaritan,  is  our  peace,  Who  hath 
made  both  one,  and  hath  broken  down  the  middle 
wall  of  partition  between  us  :  having  abolished  in 
His  flesh  the  enmity ;  for  to  make  in  Himself  of 
twain  one  new  man,  so  making  peace.  And  that 
He  might  reconcile  both  unto  God  in  one  body  by 
the  Cross,  having  slain  the  enmity  thereby.  For 
through  Him  we  both  have  access  by  one  spirit 
unto  the  Father ;  through  Jesus  Christ,  in  whom 
all  the  building  fitly  framed  together  groweth  unto 
an  holy  temple  in  the  Lord,  in  whom  ye  also  are 
builded  together  for  an  habitation  of  God  through 
the  Spirit. 


240  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 


XXVI 

MOSES   ON  THE   NEW   TESTAMENT 
MOUNT 

HE  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  the  last 
sermon  of  Moses  that  has  come  down 
to  us.  It  is  the  last  sermon  and  it  is 
the  best  of  that  great  lawgiver.  In 
this  last  sermon  of  his  we  have  Moses 
rising  above  himself  and  stretching  himself  beyond 
himself.  But  all  the  time,  and  with  all  that,  this 
is  still  Moses.  The  mouth,  indeed,  is  the  mouth  of 
a  far  greater  than  Moses,  but  the  hands  and  the 
heart  are  still  the  hands  and  the  heart  of  the  old 
lawgiver.  For  as  we  sit  under  this  sermon  we  soon 
find  that  we  are  still  in  the  hands  and  the  heart  of 
the  law.  The  law  is  at  its  most  spiritual  indeed ; 
the  law  is  at  its  most  holy,  and  just,  and  good 
indeed,  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  But  the  very 
spirituality  of  its  holiness  only  serves  to  make  our 
condemnation  under  it  all  the  more  hopeless,  and 
our  death  at  its  hands  all  the  more  certain  and  in- 
exorable. Till  we  cry  out  under  this  sermon,  as 
the  murderers  of  his  Master  cried  out  under  Peter's 
sermon — Men    and    brethren,  what  shall   we   do.? 


MOSES  AND  HIS  LAST  SERMON       241 

The  eight  beatitudes  with  which  this  sermon  begins 
are  undoubtedly  very  beautiful.  There  is  no  deny- 
ing that.  That  is  to  say  they  are  very  beautiful  to 
him  who  finds  himself  in  a  position  to  claim  them  as 
his  due,  and  to  possess  them  and  to  expatiate  upon 
them.  But  let  him  who  has  tried  with  all  his 
might  to  purchase  them  and  to  claim  them,  let  him 
tell  us  what  he  thinks  of  their  beauty  and  what 
effect  their  beauty  always  has  upon  his  heart  and 
upon  his  conscience.  Orion  and  the  Pleiades  are 
very  beautiful,  he  will  tell  you.  But  he  will  tell 
you  also  that  he  will  sooner  hope  to  build  his 
house  up  among  their  sweet  influences,  than  he  will 
hope  to  possess  the  beatitudes  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Moimt  by  anything  he  can  ever  suffer  or  per- 
form or  attain.  The  pole-star  is  not  so  far  out 
of  his  reach,  he  will  tell  you,  as  is  the  nearest  to 
him  of  those  beautiful,  but  heart-breaking,  beati- 
tudes of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  I  do  not  know 
how  it  is  in  this  matter  with  you.  But  I  will  tell 
you  frankly  how  it  is  with  me.  Ever  since  I  first 
saw  something  of  their  terrible  spirituality,  I  cannot 
bear  to  read  so  much  as  one  single  beatitude,  or 
indeed  any  other  sentence  in  this  sermon,  till  I 
have  again  strengthened  my  heart  with  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans,  To  me  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
is  the  true  foundation-stone,  corner-stone,  and  cope- 
stone,  of  the  whole  New  Testament.  Nay,  its 
bold-hearted  author  is  bold  enough  to  take  his 
Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  his  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians,  and  to  lay  them  away  up  before  and 
underneath  even  the  Book  of  Genesis  itself.     And 


242  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

as  often  as  I  read  again  his  so  ancient  and  so 
unanswerable  argument,  I  forthwith  feel  that  I  hold 
in  my  hand,  not  only  the  true  key  to  all  the 
promises  and  prophecies  and  types  and  emblems  of 
the  Old  Testament ;  but  wliat  is  far  better  to  me, 
I  hold  in  my  hand  the  true  and  only  key  to  let  me 
out  of  that  dungeon  of  despair  into  which  Moses 
again  shuts  me,  as  often  as  I  read  any  of  his 
sermons,  and  forget  my  Romans  and  my  Galatians. 
I  can  walk  at  liberty  around  Mount  Sinai  itself;  I 
can  climb  to  tlie  very  top  of  its  most  threatening 
precipices,  and  can  look  down  over  them  to  their 
very  bottom,  if  I  have  Paul  as  my  mountain  guide 
to  lean  upon,  and  his  Romans  to  direct  me  and  to 
encourage  me. 

Luther — '  not  such  a  perfect  gentleman  as  Paul, 
perhaps,  but  almost  as  great  an  evangelical  genius,' 
— Luther  labours  with  all  his  might,  and  it  is  not 
little,  to  keep  Moses  in  his  right  place  and  not  to 
let  him  move  out  of  his  right  place,  no,  not  by 
so  much  as  one  single  inch,  or,  rather,  out  of  his 
three  right  places.  The  first  of  Moses'  right 
places  is  what  the  Reformer  calls  his  political  place. 
That  is  to  say,  the  place  from  which  the  great 
lawgiver  issues  his  laws  for  the  good  government 
of  states  and  cities  and  households.  Moses'  second 
place  is  that  of  a  universal  prosecutor  and  accuser 
of  all  men  ;  for  out  of  his  second  place  he  convicts 
all  men  of  sin  and  death  and  shuts  all  men's 
mouths.  And  his  third  right  place,  according  to 
Luther,  is  to  be  an  overseer  and  task-master  of  all 
wise  and  safe  housebuilding,  as  in  the  text.     Now, 


MOSES  AND  HIS  LAST  SERMON        243 

come  and  let  us  take  tliis  approved  housebuilder 
to-night,  and  let  us  address  ourselves  to  learn  some 
communion-evening  lessons  from  him,  and  from 
Moses,  and  from  Paul. 

Well  then,  let  it  be  remarked  and  remembered 
that  the  first  praise  that  is  given  to  this  wise  house- 
builder  is  this,  that  he  digged  deep  down  for  a 
foundation  before  he  began  to  build  his  house. 
And  this  sermon  which  leads  up  to  him,  digs  deep 
down  also,  if  ever  sermon  did.  As  you  will  see  if 
you  will  but  walk  over  the  ground  it  covers  and 
with  your  eyes  open.  Take,  to  begin  with,  that 
hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness  to  which  the 
fourth  beatitude  is  attached,  and  you  will  see  what 
a  deep  and  central  shaft  that  sinks  into  your  own 
soul.  Then  take  all  kinds  of  purity  of  heart,  and 
that  is,  as  you  must  confess,  another  very  deep  and 
very  secret  shaft.  And  take  yom*  demanded  recon- 
ciliation to  your  offended  brother,  before  you  need 
seek  for  your  reconciliation  to  your  offended  God, 
and  that,  you  must  allow,  is  not  surface  work. 
Neither  is  the  command  to  do  good  to  the  men 
who  hate  you  and  despitefully  use  you.  Now  all 
that  is  what  this  sermon  describes  as  digging  deep. 
And  one  of  our  very  first  lessons  from  all  that 
should  surely  be  that  as  this  sermon  digs  so  deep, 
so  should  all  sermons  do.  The  true  worth  to  us  of 
every  sermon  is  not  its  learning,  or  its  eloquence,  but 
its  depth  :  the  depth  of  him  who  preaches  it,  and  the 
depth  of  them  who  hear  it.  Thomas  Goodwin, 
whose  depth  has  drawn  me  to  him  all  my  days,  has 
this  passage  on   this  subject.     "By    this  digging 


244  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

deep  I  do  not  mean  deep  terrors,  for  it  is  not 
necessary  that  all  kinds  of  earth  should  be  digged 
out  with  iron  pickaxes,  God  uses  such  tools  to 
none  but  hard  earth  only.  Very  small  spades  and 
shovels  suffice  to  dig  up  and  empty  out  some  men. 
Only,  all  men  must  be  dug  up  and  emptied  out 
somehow.  All  men  must  be  emptied  out  by  a 
spiritual  insight  into  their  true  estate,  and  made 
to  see  down  to  the  bottom  of  their  own  hopelessly 
evil  hearts.  And  must  be  made  to  confess  their 
utter  inability  to  build  a  single  stone  of  a  safe 
house  for  themselves,  except  out  of  and  then  upon 
that  Rock  which  is  Christ." 

There  is  no  saying  of  His  in  all  this  sermon  of 
His  that  is  more  deep-digging  and  fundamental 
than  what  our  Lord  here  says  to  us  about  much 
secret  prayer.  For  there  is  nothing  that  we  scamp 
and  skim  over  more  than  just  much  secret  prayer. 
The  Preacher  of  this  sermon  had  all  His  own  days 
dug  deep,  and  had  laid  the  foundations  of  His  own 
house  deep,  in  continual  and  unceasing  secret  prayer. 
And  He  went  on  doing  that  till  the  time  came 
when  He  Himself  was  to  be  likened  to  a  wise  man. 
For  all  that  night  in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane 
He  was  still  digging  deep,  and  was  making  abso- 
lutely sure  that  His  house  was  founded  on  God  His 
Father,  and  on  Him  alone.  And  it  was  so,  that 
when  the  rain  descended,  and  the  floods  came,  and 
the  winds  blew  and  beat  upon  that  house  all  that 
night,  it  fell  not :  for  it  was  founded  on  a  Rock. 
And  had  Peter  taken  his  Master"'s  advice  and 
example  all  his  days,  and  even  that  one  night,  his 


MOSES  AND  HIS  LAST  SERMON        245 

house  would  not  have  fallen  with  sucli  a  sad  fall, 
all  that  night  and  all  next  day.  Do  this  deep 
saying  of  Christ  yourselves,  O  all  you  communicants 
of  to-day  !  For  there  are  clouds  rising  that  will 
soon  burst  on  your  house  also,  and  if  it  is  not  dug 
deep  with  much  secret  prayer,  you  may  depend 
upon  it,  great  will  be  the  fall  of  it. 

And  now  as  you  go  over  all  this  deep-dug  ground, 
what  do  you  say  to  all  these  sayings  of  His  about 
meekness,  and  about  hunger  after  righteousness, 
and  about  purity  of  heart,  and  about  peacemaking, 
and  reconciliation  to  your  offended  brother,  and 
about  cutting  off  your  right  hand,  and  plucking 
out  your  right  eye,  and  about  loving  your  neighbour 
as  yourself,  and  about  closet  prayer,  and  about 
laying  up  treasure  in  heaven,  and  about  seeking 
first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness, 
and  about  judging  not,  that  you  be  not  judged, 
and  about  entering  in  at  the  strait  gate — what  do 
you  say  to  all  these  sayings  of  His  who  came  not 
to  destroy  the  law  but  to  fulfil  it,  and  to  have  it 
fulfilled  in  you.?  What  do  you  really  think  and 
feel  about  the  whole  of  this  Sermon  of  His  on 
the  Mount  ?  Babes  at  the  breast ;  preachers  and 
writers  with  the  shell  on  their  heads,  chatter  their 
praises  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  inces- 
santly advertise  us  that  all  their  New  Testament, 
and  all  their  creed,  and  all  their  catechism,  are 
summed  up  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  My 
brethren,  you  know  better.  You  have  dug  deeper. 
The  law  of  God  has  been  dug  deeper  than  that 
into  your  understanding  and  your  heart  and  your 


246  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

conscience.  Yes,  this  is  very  Moses  to  you,  and  Moses 
with  his  two-edged  sword  in  his  hand,  as  never  before. 
"  By  the  law  is  the  knowledge  of  sin."  And  by  this 
deep  law  of  wise  house- building  all  your  foolish 
building  is  discovered  and  denounced  to  you.  Just 
try  your  hand  at  a  truly  spiritual  house,  and  see. 
Take — "  Blessed  are  the  meek  ;  for  they  shall  inherit 
the  earth."  And  begin  at  once  to  found  deep,  and 
to  build  up,  your  spiritual  house.  Begin  to  live 
a  life  of  meekness.  Study  humility.  Keep  ever 
before  your  eyes  the  many  and  deep  reasons  there 
are  why  you  should  be  the  meekest  and  the  humblest- 
minded  of  men.  Set  yourself  with  all  your  might 
to  put  up  with  all  injustice,  and  all  ill-usage, 
and  all  contempt,  and  all  neglect  on  all  hands. 
Suffer  long  and  be  kind.  And  your  house  will  rise, 
for  a  time,  on  that  foundation,  till  one  day  a  storm 
will  come.  One  dark  day  the  rain  will  descend  and 
the  floods  will  come,  and  the  winds  will  blow  and 
beat  upon  your  house  of  meekness,  till  it  will  fall, 
and  will  bury  you  under  it.  Another  will  attempt 
his  house  on  this  foundation,  "Judge  not,  that 
you  be  not  judged.  For  with  what  judgment  you 
judge,  you  shall  be  judged ;  and  with  what  measure 
you  mete,  it  shall  be  measured  to  you  again."  Begin 
to  lay  judgment  to  the  line,  and  righteousness  to 
the  plummet,  and  tell  me  how  long  your  refuge 
lasts  you.  And  so  on,  through  all  the  foundations 
laid  on  Sinai. 

Yes.  This  whole  sermon  is  still  Moses  and  his 
two  tables  of  stone,  rather  than  Jesus  Christ  and 
His  Cross  and  Righteousness.     Literally,  no  doubt, 


MOSES  AND  HIS  LAST  SERMON       247 

Jesus  Christ  did  preach  this  sermon.  Nobody  dis- 
putes that.  But  then,  the  real  truth  is,  that  it  is 
not  Christ's  preaching  tliat  proves  Him  to  be  the 
true  Christ  to  you  at  all ;  it  is  not  His  sermons  but 
His  Cross  that  is  the  sure  proof  of  that  to  you: 
and  His  Cross  is  still  a  far  way  off.  We  have  far 
greater  preachers  of  Christ  in  the  New  Testament 
Church  than  Christ  was  Himself.  It  was  not  yet 
the  time  for  any  one  fully  to  preach  Christ.  As 
He  said  Himself  to  His  mother  at  the  marriage  of 
Cana — My  time  is  not  yet  come.  The  truth  is — I 
will  say  it  for  myself,  if  you  will  not  let  me  say  it 
for  you — unless  far  other  sermons  than  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  had  been  preached  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment Church  it  had  been  better  for  me  I  had  not 
been  born.  But  for  Paul's  preaching  of  Christ,  I, 
for  one,  would  be  of  all  men  the  most  miserable, 
'  Far  greater  and  far  better  sermons  than  mine  shall 
be  preached,'  He  said,  '  because  I  go  to  the  Father. 
I  have  yet  many  things  to  say  unto  you,  but  you 
cannot  bear  them  now.  Howbeit,  when  He,  the 
Spirit  of  truth,  is  come,  He  will  guide  you  into  all 
truth.  He  shall  glorify  me;  for  He  shall  receive 
of  mine,  and  shall  show  it  unto  you,' 

Wherefore  then  serveth  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  ?  you  will  demand  of  me ;  to  which  demand 
of  yours  Paul  will  answer  you,  "It  was  added 
because  of  transgressions,  till  the  seed  should  come 
to  whom  the  promise  was  made.  Is  the  law  then 
against  the  promises  of  God  ?  God  forbid  ;  for  if 
there  had  been  a  law  given  which  could  have  given 
life,  verily  righteousness  should  have  been  by  the 


248  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

law.  But  the  Scripture  hath  concluded  all  under 
sin,  that  the  promise  by  faith  of  Jesus  Christ  might 
he  given  to  all  them  that  believe.""  In  other  words 
— The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  sets  forth,  as  never 
before  nor  since,  a  splendid  exhibition  of  the 
majestic  and  noble  righteousness,  as  well  as  the 
exquisitely  inward  spirituality,  of  God's  holy  law. 
And  this  sermon  commands  all  men,  and  more 
especially  all  men  of  a  spiritual  mind,  to  keep 
looking  at  themselves  continually  in  this  glass  that 
Christ  Himself  here  holds  up  before  them.  Holds 
up  with  His  own  hands  before  them  in  order  that 
they  may  see,  and  never  for  a  moment  forget,  what 
manner  of  men  they  still  are.  And  then  His 
redeeming  death  being  accomplished,  and  Paul 
being  raised  up  to  preach  the  true,  and  full,  and 
complete,  and  final.  Gospel ;  and  after  we  have 
heard  and  believed  that  Jesus  Christ  is  made  of 
God  to  us  wisdom,  and  righteousness,  and  sanctifica- 
tion,  and  redemption,  we  now  return  to  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  to  see  in  all  its  beatitudes  and  in  all 
its  commandments  what  manner  of  persons  we 
ought  to  be  in  all  holy  conversation  and  godliness. 


THE  ANGEL  OF  EPHESUS  24,9 


XXVII 

THE  ANGEL  OF  THE   CHURCH   OF 
EPHESUS 

iOU  are  not  to  think  of  an  angel  with  six 
wings.  This  is  neither  a  Michael  nor 
a  Gabriel.  I  cannot  give  you  this 
man"'s  name,  but  you  may  safely  take 
it  that  he  was  simply  one  of  the  oldest 
of  the  office-bearers  of  Ephesus.  No,  he  was  no 
angel.  He  was  just  a  chosen  and  faithful  elder 
who  had  begun  by  being  a  deacon  and  who  had 
purchased  to  himself  a  good  degree,  like  any  one  of 
yourselves.  Only,  by  reason  of  his  great  age  and 
his  spotless  character  and  his  outstanding  sei'vices, 
he  had  by  this  time  risen  till  he  was  now  at  the  head 
of  what  we  would  call  the  kirk-session  of  Ephesus. 
By  universal  acclamation  he  was  now  the  "  president 
of  their  company,  and  the  moderator  of  their 
actions,"  as  Dr.  John  Rainoldes  has  it.  This  angel, 
so  to  call  him,  had  grown  grey  in  his  eldership  and 
he  was  beginning  to  feel  that  the  day  could  not 
now  be  very  far  distant  when  he  Avould  be  able  to 
lay  down  his  office  for  ever.  At  the  same  time, 
it  looked  to  him  but  like  yesterday  when  he  had 
heard   the   prince  of  the   apostles  saying  to  him 


250  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

those  never-to-be-forgotten  words — "Take  heed  to 
thyself,  and  to  all  the  flock  over  which  the  Holy 
Ghost  hath  made  thee  an  overseer,  to  feed  the  flock 
of  God,  which  He  hath  purchased  with  His  own 
blood."  And,  with  many  mistakes,  and  with  many 
shortcomings,  this  ruling  and  teaching  elder  of 
Ephesus  has  not  been  wholly  unmindful  of  his 
ordination  vows.  In  short,  this  so-called  angel  of 
the  Church  of  Ephesus  was  no  more  an  actual  angel 
than  I  am.  A  real  angel  is  an  angel.  And  we 
cannot  attain  to  a  real  angel's  nature,  or  to  his 
office,  so  as  to  describe  such  an  angel  aright.  But 
we  understand  this  Ephesus  elder's  nature  and 
office  quite  well.  We  see  his  very  same  office 
every  day  among  ourselves.  For  his  office  was 
just  to  feed  the  flock  of  God,  as  Paul  has  it. 
And  again,  as  James  has  it,  his  office  was  just  to 
visit  the  widows  and  orphans  of  Ephesus  in  their 
affliction,  and  to  keep  himself  unspotted  from  the 
world  of  Ephesus.  And  he  who  has  been  elected 
of  God  to  such  an  office  as  that  in  Ephesus,  or  in 
Edinburgh,  or  anywhere  else,  has  no  need  to  envy 
the  most  shining  angel  in  all  the  seven  heavens. 
For  the  most  far-shining  angel  in  the  seventh 
heaven  itself  desires  to  look  down  into  the  pulpit 
and  the  pastorate  of  the  humblest  and  obscurest 
minister  in  the  Church  of  Christ.  And  that 
because  he  knows  quite  well  that  there  is  nothing 
for  him  to  do  in  the  whole  of  heaven  for  one 
moment  to  be  compared  with  the  daily  round  on 
this  earth  of  a  minister,  or  an  elder,  or  a  deacon, 
or  a  collector,  or  a  Sabbath- school  teacher. 


THE  ANGEL  OF  EPHESUS  251 

Now,  there  is  nothing  so  sweet,  either  among 
angels  or  among  men,  as  to  be  appreciated  and 
praised.  To  be  appreciated  and  praised  is  the  wine 
that  maketh  glad  the  heart  of  God  and  man.  And 
the  heart  of  the  old  minister  of  Ephesus  was  made 
so  glad  when  he  began  to  read  this  Epistle  that 
he  almost  died  with  delight.  And  then  as  His 
all- seeing  and  all -rewarding  way  always  is,  His 
Lord  descended  to  instances  and  particulars  in 
His  appreciation  and  praise  of  His  servant.  'I 
know  thy  works.  I  chose  thee.  I  gave  thee  all  thy 
talents.  I  elected  thee  to  thy  charge  in  Ephesus. 
I  ordained  thee  to  that  charge,  and  my  right  hand 
hath  held  thee  up  in  it.  Thou  hast  never  been  out 
of  my  mind  or  out  of  my  eye  or  out  of  my  hand 
for  a  moment.  I  have  seen  all  thy  work  as  thou 
wentest  about  doing  it  for  me.  It  is  all  written 
before  me  in  my  book.  All  thy  tears  also  are  in 
my  bottle.' 

We  have  an  old-fashioned  English  word  that 
exactly  sets  forth  what  our  Lord  says  next  to  the 
angel  of  Ephesus.  *I  know  all  thy  painfulness 
also,'  He  says.  ,  It  is  a  most  excellent  expression 
for  our  Master's  purpose.  No  other  language 
has  produced  so  many  painful  ministers  as  the 
English  language,  and  no  other  language  can 
so  well  describe  them.  For  just  what  does  this 
painfulness  mean  ?  It  means  all  that  is  left  behind 
for  us  to  fill  up  of  His  own  painful  sufferings. 
It  means  all  that  tribulation  through  which  every 
true  minister  of  His  goes  up.  It  means  cutting  off 
now  a  right  hand  and  plucking  out  now  a  right 


252  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

eye.  It  means  taking  up  some  ministerial  cross 
every  day.  It  means  drinking  every  day  the  cup  of 
the  sinfulness  of  sin.  It  means  to  me  old  Thomas 
Sliepard  more  than  any  other  minister  that  I  know. 
"  Labour,"  as  our  bloodless  version  has  it  is  a  far  too 
dry,  a  far  too  wooden,  and  a  far  too  tearless,  word, 
for  our  Lord  to  employ  toward  such  servants  of  His. 
Depend  upon  it  He  will  not  content  Himself  with 
saying  "labour"  only.  He  will  select  and  will  dis- 
tinguish His  words  on  that  day.  And  to  all  who 
among  ourselves  have  preached  and  prayed  and  have 
examined  themselves  in  and  after  their  preaching 
and  praying,  as  it  would  seem  that  this  angel  at  one 
time  did,  and  as  Thomas  Shepard  always  did,  their 
Master  will  signalise  and  appreciate  and  praise 
their  "  painfulness "  in  their  own  so  expressive  old 
English,  and  they  will  appreciate  and  appropriate 
His  so  suitable  word  and  will  appreciate  and  praise 
Him  back  again  for  it. 

His  patience  is  another  of  the  praises  that  his 
Master  gives  to  this  once  happy  minister.  I  do 
not  suppose  that  the  angel  of  Ephesus  counted 
himself  a  specially  happy  man  when,  all  unthought 
of  to  himself,  he  was  laying  up  in  heaven  all  this 
eulogium  upon  himself  and  upon  his  patience.  But 
all  the  more,  with  such  a  suffering  servant,  his 
Master  held  Himself  bound  to  take  special  know- 
ledge of  all  that  went  on  in  the  Church  of  Ephesus. 
And  to  this  day  and  among  all  our  so  altered 
circumstances,  patience  continues  to  take  a  fore- 
most place  in  the  heart  and  in  all  the  ministry 
of  every  successor  of  the  true  apostleship.     Nay, 


THE  ANGEL  OF  EPHESUS  253 

patience  was  not  only  an  apostolic  grace,  it  was 
much  more  a  Messianic  grace.  Patience  was  one 
of  the  most  outstanding  and  far-shining  graces  of 
our  Lord  Himself  as  long  as  He  was  by  far  the 
most  sorely  tried  of  all  His  ministers.  And  He 
has  all  men  and  all  things  in  His  hands  to  this 
day  that  He  may  so  order  all  men  and  all  things 
as  that  all  His  ministers  shall  be  put  to  this  school 
all  their  days,  as  He  was  put  all  His  days  by  His 
Father.  The  whole  of  every  minister's  lot  and  life 
is  divinely  ordained  him  so  as  to  win  for  him  his 
crown  of  patience,  if  he  will  only  listen  and  believe 
it.  "I  know  all  thy  patience,"  said  our  Lord  to 
the  angel  of  Ephesus. 

I  do  not  the  least  know  who  or  what  the 
Nicolaitans  of  Ephesus  were,  and  no  one  that  I 
have  consulted  is  any  wiser  than  I  am,  unless  it 
is  Pascal.  And  Pascal  says  that  their  name  is 
equivocal.  When  that  great  genius  and  great 
saint  comes  upon  the  Nicolaitans  in  these  Epistles, 
he  has  an  original  way  of  interpretation  all  his 
own.  He  always  interprets  this  name,  so  he  tells 
us,  of  his  own  bad  passions.  And  not  the  Nicolai- 
tans of  Ephesus  only ;  but  the  Egyptians,  and  the 
Babylonians,  and  as  often  as  the  name  of  any 
"  enemy  "  occurs  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  it  occurs 
in  the  Psalms  continually,  that  so  great  and  so 
original  man  interprets  and  translates  them  all  into 
his  own  sinful  thoughts  and  sinful  feelings  and 
sinful  words  and  sinful  actions.  That  is  I  fear 
a  far  too  mystical  and  equivocal  interpretation  for 
the  most  of  us  as  yet.     To  call  the  Nicolaitans  of 


254  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

Ephesus  our  own  wicked  hearts,  is  far  too  Port- 
Royal  and  puritan  for  such  hteralists  as  we  are. 
Only,  as  one  can  see,  the  minister  of  E[)hesus 
would  be  swept  into  the  deepest  places,  and  into 
the  most  spiritual  experiences,  both  of  mysticism 
and  of  puritanism  before  their  time,  as  often  as  he  set 
himself,  as  he  must  surely  have  henceforth  set  him- 
self every  day  of  his  life,  to  hate  the  deeds  of  the 
Nicolaitans,  whoever  they  were,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  love  the  Nicolaitans  themselves.  To  a  neigh- 
bour minister  in  the  same  Synod  our  Lord  sends  a 
special  message  about  the  sharp  sword  with  the 
two  edges.  And  it  would  need  all  the  sharpness  of 
that  sword  and  all  its  edges  to  divide  asunder  the 
deeds  of  the  Nicolaitans  from  the  Nicolaitans  them- 
selves in  their  minister's  heart.  To  divide  them, 
that  is,  so  as  to  hate  their  evil  deeds  with  a  perfect 
hatred,  and  at  the  same  time  to  love  the  doers 
of  those  deeds  with  a  perfect  love.  The  name 
Nicolaitan  is  equivocal,  says  Pascal. 

A  litotes  is  a  rhetorical  device  by  means  of  which 
far  less  is  said  than  is  intended  to  be  understood. 
A  true  litotes  has  this  intention  and  this  result 
that  while,  in  words,  it  diminishes  what  is  actually 
said,  in  reality,  it  greatly  increases  the  effect  of 
what  is  said.  What  could  be  a  more  condemning 
charge  against  any  minister  of  Christ  than  to  tell 
him  in  plain  words  that  he  had  left  his  first  love 
to  his  Master  and  to  his  Master's  work  ?  And 
yet,  just  by  the  peculiar  way  in  which  that  charge 
is  here  worded,  a  far  more  sudden  blow  is  dealt  to 
this  minister's  heart  than  if  the  charge  had  been 


THE  ANGEL  OF  EPHESUS  255 

made  in  the  plainest  and  sternest  terms.  To  say 
"nevertheless  I  have  somewhat  against  thee"-  to 
say  "  somewhat,"  as  if  it  were  some  very  small 
matter,  and  scarcely  worth  mentioning,  and  then 
suddenly  to  say  what  it  is,  that,  you  may  depend 
upon  it,  gave  a  shock  of  horror  to  that  minister's 
heart  that  he  did  not  soon  get  over.  You  would 
have  thought  such  a  minister  impossible.  Had  you 
heard  his  praise  so  generously  spread  abroad  at 
first  both  by  God  and  man  you  would  have  felt  ab- 
solutely sure  of  that  minister's  spiritual  prosperity 
and  praise  to  the  very  end.  You  would  have  felt 
as  sure  as  sure  could  be  that  behind  all  that  so 
immense  activity  and  popularity  there  must  lie 
hidden  a  heart  as  full  as  it  could  hold  of  the 
deepest  and  solidest  peace  with  God ;  a  peace,  you 
would  have  felt  sure,  without  a  speck  upon  it,  and 
with  no  controversy  on  Christ's  part  within  a  thou- 
sand miles  of  it.  But  the  ministerial  heart  is 
deceitful  above  all  other  men's  hearts.  And  these 
shocking  revelations  about  this  much-lauded  minister 
have  been  recorded  and  preserved  in  order  that  all 
ministers  may  see  themselves  in  them  as  in  a  glass. 
Now,  there  is  not  one  moment's  doubt  about  when 
and  where  all  this  terrible  declension  and  decay 
began  to  set  in.  His  Master  does  not  say  in  as 
many  words  just  when  and  where  matters  began  to 
go  wrong  between  them  two.  But  that  silence  of 
His  is  just  another  of  His  rhetorical  devices.  He 
does  not  tell  it  from  the  housetops  of  Ephesus,  as 
yet.  But  the  minister  of  Ephesus  knew  quite  well, 
both  when  and  where  his  first  love  began  to  fail 


256  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

and  he  to  fall  away.  He  knew  quite  well  with- 
out his  Master's  message  about  it,  that  all  this 
declension  and  collapse  began  in  the  time  and  at 
the  place  of  secret  prayer.  For,  not  this  Ephesus 
minister  only,  but  every  minister  everywhere  con- 
tinues to  love  his  Master  and  his  Master''s  work, 
ay,  and  his  Master's  enemies,  exactly  in  the 
measure  of  his  secret  reading  of  Holy  Scripture 
and  his  secret  prayerfulness.  Yes,  without  being 
told  it  in  as  many  words  I  am  as  sure  of  it  as  if  I 
had  been  that  metropolitan  minister  myself.  You 
may  depend  upon  it ;  nay,  you  know  it  yourselves 
quite  well,  that  it  was  his  habitual  and  long-continued 
neglect  of  secret  prayer.  It  was  from  that  declension 
and  decay  that  his  ministry  became  so  undermined 
and  had  come  now  so  near  a  great  catastrophe.  '  With 
all  my  past  praise  of  thee,  I  give  thee  this  warning,"" 
said  that  Voice  which  is  as  the  sound  of  many 
waters, '  that  unless  thou  returnest  to  thy  first  life 
of  closet  communion  with  Me,  I  will  come  to  thee 
quickly  and  will  remove  thy  candlestick  out  of  its 
place.  I  gave  thee  that  congregation  when  I 
might  have  given  it  to  another.  And  I  have 
upheld  thee  in  it,  and  have  delivered  thee  out  of  a 
thousand  distresses  of  thine.  But  thou  hast  wearied 
of  me.  Thou  hast  given  thy  night  watches  to  other 
things  than  a  true  minister's  meditation  and  prayer 
for  himself  and  for  his  people.  And  I  will  suffer  it 
at  thy  hands  no  longer.  Remember  from  whence 
thou  hast  fallen,  and  repent,  and  do  the  first  works.' 
And  now  with  all  that  in  closing  take  this 
as  the  secret  prayer  of  the  angel  of  Ephesus  the 


THE  ANGEL  OF  EPHESUS  257 

very  first  night  after  this  severe  message  was  de- 
livered to  him.  '  O  Thou  that  holdest  the  stars  in 
Thy  right  hand,  and  walkest  in  the  midst  of  the 
seven  golden  candlesticks.  Thou  hast  spoken  in 
Thy  mercy  to  me.  And  thou  hast  given  me  an 
ear  to  hear  Thy  merciful  words  toward  me.  Lord, 
I  repent.  At  Thy  call  I  repent.  I  repent  of  many 
things  in  my  ministry  in  Ephesus.  But  of  nothing 
so  much  as  of  my  restraint  of  secret  prayer.  This 
has  been  my  besetting  sin.  This  has  been  the 
worm  at  the  root  of  all  my  mistakes  and  misfor- 
tunes in  my  ministry.  This  has  been  my  blame. 
O  spare  me  according  to  Thy  word.  O  suffer  me 
a  little  longer  that  I  may  yet  serve  Thee.  What 
profit  is  there  in  my  blood  ?  Shall  the  dead  hold 
communion  with  Thee.?  Shall  the  grave  of  a 
castaway  minister  redound  honour  to  Thee  ?  Re- 
store Thou  my  soul.  Restore  once  more  to  me 
the  joy  of  Thy  salvation,  then  will  I  teach  trans- 
gressors Thy  ways,  and  sinners  shall  be  converted 
to  Thee.  The  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken 
spirit;  a  broken  and  a  contrite  heart,  O  God, 
Thou  wilt  not  despise.  Do  good  in  Thy  good 
pleasure  unto  Zion ;  build  Thou  the  walls  of 
Jerusalem.' 


258  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 


XXVIII 

THE  ANGEL  OF  THE  CHURCH 
IN  SMYRNA 

vF  Polycarp  was  indeed  the  angel  of  the 
Church  of  Smyrna,  then  we  know  some 
most  interesting  things  about  this 
angel  over  and  above  what  we  read 
in  this  Epistle  addressed  to  him.  All 
John  Bunyan's  readers  have  heard  about  Polycarp. 
"  Then  said  Gains,  is  this  Christian's  wife  and  are 
these  his  children.?  I  knew  your  husband's  father, 
yea,  also,  and  his  father's  father.  Many  have  been 
good  of  this  stock.  Stephen  was  the  first  of  them 
who  stood  all  trials  for  the  sake  of  the  truth. 
James  was  another  of  the  same  generation.  To  say 
nothing  of  Peter  and  Paul,  there  was  Ignatius,  who 
was  cast  to  the  lions.  Romanus,  also,  whose  flesh 
was  cut  by  pieces  from  his  bones.  And  Polycarp, 
that  played  the  man  in  the  fire."  You  possess 
Polycarp's  whole  history  in  a  nutshell  in  that  single 
sentence  of  John  Bunyan  about  him.  And  if  you 
but  add  that  one  sentence  to  this  Epistle  you  will 
have  a  full-length  and  a  perfect  portrait  of  the 
angel  of  the  Church  of  Smyrna. 

Polycarp  was  born  well  on  in  the  first  century. 


THE  ANGEL  OF  SMYRNA  259 

And  it  must  have  been  a  matter  of  constant  regret 
to  Polycarp  that  he  had  not  been  born  just  a  little 
earlier  in  that  century  so  as  to  have  seen  his  Lord 
with  his  own  eyes  and  so  as  to  have  heard  Him  with 
his  own  ears.  But  as  it  was,  Polycarp  was  happy 
enough  to  have  been  born,  and  born  again,  quite  in 
time  to  enjoy  the  next  best  thing  to  seeing  and 
hearing  his  Saviour  for  himself.  For  Polycarp  was 
a  disciple  of  the  Apostle  John,  and  he  must  have 
often  heard  the  Fourth  Gospel  from  John's  lips 
long  before  it  had  as  yet  come  from  John's  pen. 
And  that  was  surely  a  high  compensation  to  Poly- 
carp for  not  having  seen  and  heard  the  Divine 
Word  Himself.  And  then  we  are  very  thankful 
to  possess  a  circular-letter  which  the  elders  of  the 
Church  of  Smyrna  sent  round  to  the  Seven 
Churches  telling  the  brethren  everywhere  how  well 
their  old  minister  had  played  the  man  in  the  fire. 
After  narrating  some  remarkable  incidents  con- 
nected with  Polycarp's  apprehension  the  circular- 
epistle  proceeds : — 

'  When  Polycarp  was  brought  to  the  tribunal 
the  pro-consul  asked  him  if  he  was  Polycarp.  Have 
pity  on  thy  great  age,  said  the  humane  Roman 
officer.  Swear  but  once  by  the  fortunes  of  Caesar. 
Reproach  this  Christ  of  thine  with  but  one  word, 
and  I  will  set  you  free.  "Eighty-and-six  years," 
answered  Polycarp,  "  I  have  served  Jesus  Christ, 
and  He  has  never  once  wronged  or  deceived  me,  how 
then  can  I  reproach  Him  ! "  And  tlien  as  some  of 
the  executioners  were  binding  the  aged  saint,  and 
others  were  lighting  the  fire,  certain  who  stood  by 


260  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

took  down  this  prayer  from  his  lips :  "  O  Father  of 
Thy  well-beloved  Son  Jesus  Christ.  I  bless  Thee  that 
Thou  hast  counted  me  worthy  of  this  day  and  this 
hour,  I  thank  Thee  that  I  am  permitted  to  put  my 
lips  to  the  cup  of  Christ.  And  I  thank  Thee  for  the 
sure  hope  of  the  resurrection  and  for  the  incorrup- 
tible life  of  heaven.  I  praise  Thee,  O  Father,  for  all 
Thy  soul-saving  benefits.  And  I  glorify  Thee  through 
our  eternal  High-Priest,  Jesus  Christ,  through 
whom,  and  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  be  glory  to  Thee, 
both  now  and  ever,  Amen."  Eleven  brethren  from 
the  Church  of  Philadelphia  suffered  with  Polycarp, 
but  he  is  famous  above  them  all ;  the  very  heathen 
venerate  his  name.  He  was  not  only  an  eminent 
teacher  and  an  illustrious  martyr,  but  in  all  he  did 
he  did  it  out  of  a  truly  apostolical  and  evangelical 
spirit.  Polycarp  suffered  his  martyrdom  on  the 
great  Sabbath,  at  the  eighth  hour  of  the  day.  I, 
Pionius,  have  transcribed  and  posted  this  letter  to 
all  the  Churches  round  about.  So  may  our  Lord 
gather  my  soul  among  His  elect.  Amen.' 

Apostolical,  evangelical,  and  most  illustrious, 
martyr,  as  Polycarp  proved  himself  to  be  at  the 
last,  yet,  when  he  began  his  ministry  in  Smyrna 
he  was  a  man  of  like  fears  and  flinchings  of  heart 
as  we  are  ourselves.  You  may  depend  upon  it, 
Polycarp  was  for  a  long  time  in  as  great  bondage 
through  fear  of  death  as  any  of  yourselves.  And 
every  syllable  of  this  Epistle  is  the  proof  of  that. 
His  Master  dictated  every  syllable  of  this  Epistle 
with  the  most  direct  and  the  most  pointed  bearing 
on  Polycarp  and  on  his  ministry  in  Smyrna.     Every 


THE  ANGEL  OF  SMYRNA  26l 

iota  of  this  Epistle  shows  us  that  it  was  addressed 
to  a  minister  who  was  at  that  time  of  a  timid  heart 
and  one  whose  continual  temptation  it  was  to  flinch 
and  flee.  The  very  name  that  Polycarp's  Master 
here  selects  for  Himself  in  writing  to  Polycarp 
spoke  straight  home  to  Polycarp's  trembling  heart. 
"  Tiiese  things  saith  He  which  was  dead  and  is 
alive."  Polycarp  was  in  constant  danger  of  death 
and  in  constant  fear  of  death.  But  after  this 
Epistle,  and  especially  after  that  opening  Name  of 
His  Master,  Polycarp  became  another  man  and 
another  minister.  Till  this  was  Poly  carp's  song 
every  day  till  the  day  when  he  played  the  man  in 
the  fire — 

Death  !  thou  wast  once  an  uncouth^  hideous  thing ! 
But  since  my  Master's  death 

Has  put  some  blood  into  thy  face. 
Thou  hast  grown  sure  a  thing  to  be  desired 

And  full  of  grace  ! 

We  found  the  litotes  device  in  the  first  of  these 
Seven  Epistles,  and  we  find  here  the  parenthesis 
device  in  the  second  of  the  Seven.  When  the 
Spirit  speaks  to  the  Seven  Churches  He  does  not 
despise  to  make  use  of  the  rhetorician's  art.  He 
recognises  and  sanctifies  that  ancient  accomplish- 
ment by  His  repeated  employment  of  it,  and  in 
His  repeated  employment  of  it  He  gives  us  so  many 
lessons  in  our  employment  of  it.  "  The  parenthesis 
is  the  delight  of  all  full  minds  and  quick  wits." 
Now  though  these  exact  words  have  never  before 
been  applied  to  Him  whose  Epistle  to  Polycarp 
we  are   now    engaged   upon ;  at  any  rate,  we  may 


262  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

surely  go  on  to  apply  these  so  expressive  words 
to  His  so-talented  amanuensis.  And  this  full- 
minded  and  quick-witted  parenthesis  comes  in 
here  in  this  way.  Polycarp's  poverty  was  one  of 
his  many  trials  and  temptations  as  the  minister 
of  Smyrna.  And  just  as  the  ever-present  image 
of  his  Divine  Master''s  death  and  resurrection 
nerved  Polycarp  to  overcome  all  fear  of  his  own 
death,  so  in  like  manner  his  poverty  is  here  put 
to  silence  for  ever  by  this  parenthesis,  ("  but  thou 
art  rich "").  And  not  only  have  we  a  parenthesis 
here,  but  a  paradox  as  well.  And  both  of  these 
rhetorical  devices  are  demanded  here  in  order  to 
give  utterance  to  the  fulness  of  the  mind  and  the 
quickness  of  the  wit  both  of  the  true  Autlior 
of  this  Epistle  and  of  the  highly  privileged 
amanuensis  of  it.  So  he  was.  Polycarp  was  both 
poor  and  at  the  same  time  rich.  As  many  of  his 
best  successors  in  the  ministry  still  are.  They  are 
almost  as  poor  as  he  was  as  far  as  gold  and  silver 
go.  But  they  are  even  richer  than  he  was  in  many 
things  that  gold  and  silver  cannot  command.  For 
one  thing,  they  are  far  richer  than  Polycarp  could 
possibly  be  in  the  riches  of  the  mind.  They  are 
surpassingly  rich  in  so  far  as  they  possess  the  talents 
and  the  trainings  and  the  tastes  of  cultivated 
and  refined  Christian  scholars.  Money  is  greatly 
coveted  because  it  gives  its  possessor  the  entrance 
into  the  best  society  of  the  day.  But  a  well- 
educated  and  a  well-read  minister  has  entrance  not 
only  into  the  very  best  society  of  his  own  day,  but 
of  every  day,  and  he  will  deign  to  enter  no  society 


THE  ANGEL  OF  SMYRNA  263 

of  any  day  but  the  very  best.  He  keeps  company 
with  the  aristocracy  only.  Again,  riches  are  to  be 
desired  for  wliat  they  enable  their  possessor  to  be 
and  to  do  and  to  enjoy.  Riches  enable  their 
possessor  to  the  true  enjoyment  of  life,  to  the  true 
use  of  life,  to  true  power  in  life,  and  to  the  oppor- 
tunity and  the  ability  of  attaining  to  the  true 
end  of  life.  Unchallengeably,  riches  in  the  right 
owner's  hand  immensely  assist  in  the  attainment 
of  all  these  high  ambitions.  But  sure  I  am,  there 
is  no  class  of  men  among  us  who  are  so  rich  in  all 
these  respects  as  just  our  well-educated,  well-read, 
hard-working,  absolutely-devoted,  ministers.  No 
doubt  the  parenthesist  had  in  his  eye  Polycarp's 
riches  toward  God  exclusively.  But  had  he 
written  in  our  day  he  would  certainly  have 
extended  his  arms  to  embrace  a  poor  minister's  few 
but  fit  books,  and  his  select  friendships,  as  well  as 
many  other  things  that  go  to  alleviate  and  even  to 
make  affluent  his  remote  and  arduous  life.  Money 
brings  troops  of  friends  also,  so  long  as  it  lasts.  But 
when  Polycarp  was  robing  for  presentation  at 
Court,  so  Pionius  tells  us,  his  young  men  would  not 
let  him  so  much  as  touch  his  own  shoe-latchet. 
Now  you  may  have  your  shoes  put  on  and  taken 
off  for  money,  but  you  cannot  have  them  tied  with 
heart-strings,  as  Polycarp's  shoes  were  tied  that 
day. 

Malicious  and  abusive  language  was  another  of 
Polycarp's  tribulations.  I  have  not  enough  ancient 
Church  History  to  be  able  to  inform  you  just  what 
outlets   they   had   for   their   malice   in   that  sub- 


264  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

apostolic  day.  We  have  Letters  to  the  Editor 
among  the  resources  of  our  civilisation.  And  neither 
do  I  know  beyond  a  guess  just  what  Polycarp  did 
when  he  was  again  ill-used  by  the  tongues  and  pens  of 
his  day.  But  if  you  will  hear  it  I  will  tell  you  what 
Santa  Teresa  did.  And  it  is  because  she  did  what 
I  am  to  invite  you  to  do,  that  I  for  one  entirely, 
and  with  acclamation,  acquiesce  in  her  canonisation. 
"  After  my  vow  of  perfection  I  spoke  not  ill  of  any 
creature,  how  little  soever  it  might  be.  I  scrupu- 
lously avoided  all  approaches  to  detraction.  I 
had  this  rule  ever  present  with  me,  that  I  was  not 
to  wish,  nor  assent  to,  nor  say  such  things  of  any 
person  whatsoever,  that  I  would  not  have  them  say 
of  me.  Still,  the  devil  sometimes  fills  me  with  such 
a  harsh  and  cruel  temper ;  such  a  spirit  of  anger 
and  hostility  at  some  people,  that  I  could  eat  them 
up  and  annihilate  them.  At  the  same  time,  con- 
cerning things  said  of  myself  in  detraction,  and 
they  are  many,  and  are  very  prejudicial  to  me,  I 
find  myself  much  improved.  It  is  a  mark  of  the 
deepest  and  truest  humility  to  see  ourselves  con- 
demned without  cause,  and  to  be  silent  under  it. 
Indeed,  I  never  heard  of  any  one  speaking  evil  of 
me,  but  I  immediately  saw  how  far  short  he  came 
of  the  full  truth.  For,  if  he  was  wrong  or 
exaggerated  in  his  particulars,  I  had  offended  God 
much  more  in  other  matters  that  my  detractor 
knew  nothing  about.  O  my  Lord,  when  I  remem- 
ber in  how  many  ways  Thou  didst  suffer  detraction 
and  misrepresentation,  I  know  not  where  my  senses 
are  when  I  am  in  such  haste  to  defend  and  excuse 


THE  ANGEL  OF  SMYRNA  265 

myself.  What  is  it,  O  Lord  ?  what  do  we  imagine 
to  get  by  pleasing  worms  like  ourselves,  or  by  being 
praised  by  them !  What  about  being  blamed  by 
all  men,  if  only  we  stand  at  last  blameless  before 
Thee.""  The  slander  of  the  synagogue  of  Satan  in 
Smyrna  was  not  met,  I  am  sure,  with  a  mind 
more  acceptable  to  the  First  and  the  Last  than 
that. 

The  last  thing  that  He  which  was  dead  and  is 
alive  said  to  Polycarp  was  this  mysterious  utter- 
ance of  His,  "  Thou  shalt  not  be  hurt  of  the  second 
death.'"  Did  Polycarp  fully  understand  that  assur- 
ance, I  wonder  ?  Do  you  fully  understand  it  ?  At 
any  rate,  you  understand  what  the  first  death  is. 
In  our  first  death  our  souls  will  leave  our  bodies, 
and  then  corruption  will  so  set  in  upon  our  dead 
bodies  that  those  who  loved  us  best  will  be  the  first 
to  bury  us  outof  their  sight.  Now,  whatever  else  and 
whatever  beyond  that  the  second  death  is,  it  begins 
with  God  leaving  our  souls.  God  is  the  soul  of  our 
souls.  He  is  the  life,  the  strength,  the  support,  the 
light,  the  peace,  the  fountain,  of  all  kinds  of  life  in 
soul  and  body.  And  when  He  leaves  our  souls  that  is 
the  beginning  of  the  second  death.  Only,  God  does 
not,  properly  speaking,  leave  the  soul.  He  is  driven 
out  of  the  soul.  In  spite  of  all  that  God  could  do,  in 
spite  of  all  that  love  and  grace  and  truth  could  do, 
the  lost  soul  has  banished  God  for  ever  out  of  itself. 
It  has  insulted  and  despised  God  in  every  way.  It 
has  trampled  upon  Him  in  every  way.  It  has  shut 
its  door  in  His  face  ten  thousand  times,  and  has 
taken  in  and  has  held  revels  with  His  worst  enemies. 


266  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

Had  Poly  carp  feared  death  more  than  he  feared 
Him  who  was  now  alive ;  had  he  feared  the  fires  in 
the  market-place  of  Smyrna  more  than  the  fires  that 
are  not  quenched ;  had  he  deserted  his  post  in 
Smyrna  because  of  its  difficulties ;  had  his  soul 
soured  at  God  and  man  because  of  his  poverty ; 
when  he  was  reviled,  had  he  reviled  back  again ; 
when  he  suffered,  had  he  threatened ;  and  had  he 
reproached  Christ  when  he  was  bribed  with  his  life 
so  to  do, — Polycarp  is  here  told  plainly  that  he  would 
have  died  the  second  death  with  all  that  it  involves. 
But  as  it  was,  he  died  neither  the  first  death  nor 
the  second.  Polycarp  was  changed,  rather  than 
died.  Polycarp  had  such  a  Master  that  He 
died  both  deaths  for  His  servant.  It  was  not  for 
nothing  that  He  said  to  Polycarp  that  He  was  once 
dead  but  is  now  alive.  For  He  was  dead  with  both 
deaths  for  Polycarp.  It  was  when  He  was  hurt  of 
the  second  death  for  Polycarp  that,  under  the  sore- 
ness of  the  hurt,  He  cried  out  first  in  the  garden, 
and  then  on  the  Cross.  Have  we  not  seen  that  in 
the  second  death  the  soul  is  forsaken  of  God  .'*  And 
was  He  not  forsaken  till  Golgotha  for  the  time  was 
like  Gehenna  itself  to  Him  ?  He  that  hath  an  ear, 
let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit  saith  to  the  Churches : 
He  that  overcometh  shall  not  be  hurt  of  the  second 
death.  I  will  ransom  them  from  the  power  of  the 
grave.  I  will  redeem  them  from  the  fear  of  death. 
O  death,  I  will  be  thy  plague.  O  grave,  I  will 
be  thy  destruction. 


THE  ANGEL  OF  PERGAMOS  267 


XXIX 

THE   ANGEL   OF   THE   CHURCH    IN 
PERGAMOS 

N  his  beautifully-written  but  somewhat 
superficial  commentary,  Archbishop 
Trench  says  that  there  is  a  strong 
attraction  in  these  seven  Epistles  for 
those  scholars  who  occupy  themselves 
with  pure  exegesis.  And  that  strong  attraction 
arises,  so  the  Archbishop  says,  from  the  fact  that 
there  are  so  many  unsolved  problems  of  interpreta- 
tion in  these  seven  Epistles.  Now,  I  am  no  pure 
exegete  and  those  unsolved  problems  of  pure 
exegesis  have  little  or  no  attraction  for  me.  My 
irresistible  attraction  to  these  seven  Epistles  lies  in 
this  that  they  are  so  many  looking-glasses,  as  James 
tlie  Lord's  brother  would  say,  in  which  all  ministers 
of  churches  everywhere  to  the  end  of  time  may 
see  themselves,  and  may  judge  themselves,  as  their 
Master  sees  them  and  judges  them.  Another 
thing  that  greatly  attracts  our  commentators  to 
Pergamos  is  the  intensely  interesting  and  extra- 
ordinarily productive  field  of  pagan  antiquities  that 
Pergamos  has  proved  itself  to  be.  Pergamos  was 
the  most  illustrious  city  in  all  Asia.      It  was  a 


268  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

perfect  city  of  temples,  Zeus,  Athene,  Apollo, 
Dionysus,  Aphrodite,  ^Esculapius,  were  all  among 
the  gods  of  Pergamos,  and  all  had  magnificent 
shrines  erected  and  administered  to  their  honour. 
Here  also  Galen  the  famous  physician  was  born. 
Pergamos  possessed  a  library  also  that  rivalled  in 
size  and  in  value  the  world-renowned  library  of 
Alexandria  itself.  Two  hundred  thousand  volumes 
stood  entered  on  the  catalogue  of  the  public  library 
of  Pergamos.  Our  well-known  word  'parchment' 
is  derived  to  us  from  the  stationers''  shops  of  Pcm-- 
gamos,  and  so  on.  Whether  the  minister  of 
Pergamos  found  all  that  heathen  environment  as 
full  of  delight  and  edification  to  himself,  and 
to  his  proselyte  people,  in  his  day  as  it  is  to 
us  in  our  day,  is  another  matter.  But  of  the 
deep  interest  and  the  great  delight  that  all  these 
things  have  to  us  there  can  be  no  doubt.  For  the 
most  of  our  expositors  spend  both  their  time  and 
our  time  in  little  else  but  in  telling  and  hearing 
about  the  antiquities  of  Pergamos.  But  with  all 
those  intellectual  and  artistic  attractions  filling 
every  ]mrt  of  his  parish,  after  the  minister  of  Per- 
gamos had  this  Epistle  sent  to  him,  all  the  rest  of 
his  days  in  Pergamos  he  would  have  neither  time 
nor  thought  nor  taste  for  anything  else  but  for 
this,  that  Satan  had  his  seat  in  Pergamos. 

It  was  to  bring  home  the  discovery  of  this  fearful 
fact  to  the  minister  of  Pergamos  that  was  the  sole 
object  of  this  startling  Epistle  to  him  ;  just  as  his 
receiving  of  this  Epistle  was  the  supreme  epoch 
and  the  decisive  crisis  of  his  whole  ministerial  life. 


THE  ANGEL  OF  PERGAMOS  269 

And  no  wonder.  For  to  be  told,  and  that  on 
such  absolute  authority,  that  while  Satan  had  his 
colonies  and  his  dependencies  and  his  outposts  in 
Ephesus,  and  in  Smyrna,  and  in  Thyatira,  yet  that 
his  very  citadel  and  stronghold  was  in  Pergamos, — 
that  must  have  been  an  awful  revelation  to  the  re- 
sponsible pastor  of  Pergamos.  Pergamos  is  Satan's 
very  capital,  said  this  Epistle  to  the  overwhelmed 
minister  of  Pergamos.  It  is  the  very  metropolis  of 
his  infernal  empire.  All  his  power  for  evil,  both 
against  God  and  man,  is  concentrated  and  en- 
trenched in  Pergamos.  "  London  is  a  dangerous 
and  an  ensnaring  place,"  writes  John  Newton  in 
his  Cardiphonia.  "  I  account  myself  happy  that 
my  lot  is  cast  at  a  distance  from  it.  London 
appears  to  me  like  a  sea,  wherein  most  are  tossed 
by  storms,  and  many  suffer  shipwreck.  Political 
disputes,  winds  of  doctrine,  scandals  of  false  pro- 
fessors, parties  for  and  against  particular  ministers, 
fashionable  amusements,  and  so  on.  I  often  think 
of  the  difference  between  London  grace  and  country 
grace.  By  London  grace,  when  genuine,  I  under- 
stand grace  in  a  very  advanced  degree.  The 
favoured  few  who  are  kept  alive  to  God,  simple- 
hearted  and  spiritually-minded,  in  the  midst  of 
such  deep  snares  and  temptations,  appear  to  me  to 
be  the  first-rate  Christians  of  the  land.  Not  that 
we  are  without  our  trials  here.  The  evil  of  our 
own  hearts  and  the  devices  of  Satan  cut  us  out 
work  enough.  My  own  soul  is  kept  alive,  as  it 
were,  by  miracle.  The  enemy  thrusts  sore  at  me 
that  I  may  fall.     In  London  I  am  in  a  crowd  of 


270  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

temptations,  but  in  the  country  there  is  a  crowd  of 
temptations  in  me.  To  what  purpose  do  I  boast 
of  retirement,  when  I  am  myself  possessed  of 
Satan's  legions  in  every  place?  My  mind,  even 
at  Olney,  is  a  perfect  puppet-show,  a  Vanity  Fair, 
an  absolute  Newgate  itself." 

John  Newton  is  one  of  the  three  best  commentators 
I  have  met  with  on  this  Epistle.  John  Newton, 
and  James  Durham,  and  Miss  Rossetti.  And  what 
so  greatly  interests  those  three  commentators  in 
Pergamos  is  this,  that  they  see  from  this  Epistle  to 
the  minister  of  Pergamos  that  Satan  really  had  his 
seat  in  that  minister's  own  heart,  just  as  that  same 
seat  is  in  their  own  heart.  No  other  antiquity  in 
Pergamos  has  any  interest  to  James  Durham  at 
any  rate,  but  that  antique  minister's  heart  in  Per- 
gamos. For  Satan,  if  he  is  anything,  is  a  spirit. 
And  if  he  has  a  seat  anywhere  in  this  world  it  is  in 
the  spirits  of  men.  Satan  dwells  not  in  temples 
made  with  hands,  either  in  Pergamos,  or  in  Olney, 
or  in  Edinburgh,  but  only  in  the  spirits  of  men ; 
and,  most  of  all,  in  the  spirits  of  ministers,  as  this 
Epistle  teaches  us,  and  as  all  the  best  commentators 
tell  us  it  teaches  us.  And  the  reason  of  that  so 
perilous  pre-eminence  of  ministers  is  plain.  Minis- 
ters, if  they  are  real  ministers,  hold  a  kind  of 
vicarious  and  representative  position  both  before 
heaven  and  hell,  and  the  swordsmen  and  archers 
of  both  heaven  and  hell  specially  strike  at  and 
sorely  wound  and  grieve  all  such  ministers,  Satan 
is  like  the  King  of  Syria  at  the  battle  of  Ramoth- 
Gilead.     For  before  that  battle  the  King  of  Syria 


THE  ANGEL  OF  PERGAMOS  271 

commanded  his  thirty-and-two  captains  that  had 
rule  over  his  chariots,  saying,  "  Fight  neither  with 
small  nor  great  save  only  with  the  King  of  Israel." 
And  Satan  is  right.  For  let  a  minister  but  succeed 
in  his  own  battle  against  Satan,  let  a  minister  but 
"  overcome,"  as  our  Lord's  word  is  in  every  one  of 
these  ministerial  Epistles,  and  his  whole  congrega- 
tion will  soon  begin  to  share  in  the  spoils  of  their 
minister's  victory. 

Thus  Satan  trembles  when  he  sees 
A  minister  upon  his  knees. 

O  poor  and  much-to-be-pitied  ministers  !  With 
Satan  concentrating  all  his  fiery  darts  upon  you, 
with  the  deep-sunken  pillars  of  his  seat  not  yet 
dug  out  of  your  hearts,  with  all  his  thirty-two 
captains  fighting  day  and  night  for  the  remnants 
of  their  master's  power  within  you,  and  all  the 
time,  a  far  greater  than  Satan  running  you  through 
and  through  with  that  terrible  sword  of  His  till 
there  is  not  a  sound  spot  in  you — O  most  forlorn 
and  afflicted  of  all  men  !  O  most  bruised  in  your 
mind,  and  most  broken  in  your  heart,  of  all 
men !  Pity  your  ministers,  my  brethren,  and  put 
up  with  much  that  you  cannot  as  yet  understand 
or  sympathise  with  in  them.  And  never  for  a  day 
forget  to  pray  for  them  in  secret,  and  by  name, 
and  by  the  name  of  their  inward  battle-field.  Do 
that,  for  your  ministers  have  a  far  harder-beset 
life  than  you  have  any  idea  of ;  with  both  heaven 
and  hell  setting  on  them  continually  and  to  the 
last  drop  of  their  blood.     May  my  tongue  cleave 


272  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

to  the  roof  of  my  mouth  before  I  sav  a  single  word 
to  turn  any  young  man  away  from  the  ministry, 
who  is  called  of  God  to  that  awful  work.  At  the 
same  time,  let  all  intending  ministers  count  well 
the  cost  lest,  haply,  after  they  have  laid  the 
foundation  and  are  not  able  to  finish,  both  men 
and  devils  shall  point  at  them  and  say,  this 
minister  began  to  build  for  himself  and  for  his 
congregation,  for  eternity,  but  come  and  see  the 
ruin  he  has  left !  Count  well,  I  say  again, 
whether  or  no  you  are  able  to  finish. 

A  single  word  about  "Antipas  my  faithful 
martyr"  in  Pergamos.  "  It  is  difficult,'"  complains 
the  commentator  mentioned  in  opening,  "  to  under- 
stand the  silence  of  all  ecclesiastical  history  respect- 
ing so  famous  a  martyr  as  Antipas."  But  faithful 
martyrs  are  not  surely  such  a  rarity,  either  in 
ancient  or  in  modern  ecclesiastical  history,  that  we 
need  spend  much  regret  that  we  are  not  told  more 
about  one  out  of  such  a  multitude.  At  any  rate, 
we  have  a  pretty  long  roll  of  well-known  names  in 
our  own  evangelical  martyrology,  and  the  cloud  of 
such  witnesses  is  by  no  means  closed  in  Scotland. 
Whether  this  Antipas  was  a  martyred  minister  or 
no,  I  cannot  tell.  Only  there  are  many  martyred 
ministers  in  our  own  land  and  Church  whose  names 
are  as  little  known  as  the  bare  name  of  Antipas. 
Only,  the  silence  and  the  ignorance  and  the  indiffer- 
ence of  earth  does  not  extend  to  heaven.  The 
silence  and  the  ignorance  and  the  indifference  of 
earth  will  only  make  the  surprise,  both  of  those 
ministers  and  of  their  persecutors,  all  the  greater 


THE  ANGEL  OF  PERGAMOS  273 

when  the  day  of  their  recognition  and  reward  comes. 
"Then  shall  the  righteous  man  stand  before  the 
face  of  such  as  have  afflicted  him,  and  have  made 
no  account  of  his  labours.  When  they  see  it  they 
shall  be  troubled  with  terrible  fear,  and  shall  be 
amazed  at  the  strangeness  of  his  salvation,  so  far 
beyond  all  they  had  looked  for.  And  they,  repent- 
ing and  groaning  for  anguish  of  spirit,  shall  say 
within  themselves — This  was  he  whom  we  had 
sometimes  in  derision,  and  made  a  proverb  of 
reproach.  We  fools  counted  his  life  madness,  and 
his  end  to  be  without  honour.  But  now  he  is 
numbered  among  the  children  of  God,  and  his  lot 
is  among  the  saints  !  "  For  then  shall  be  fulfilled 
that  which  is  written,  To  him  that  overcometh  will 
I  give  to  eat  of  the  hidden  manna.  And  I  will 
give  him  a  white  stone,  and  in  the  stone  a  new 
name  written,  which  no  man  knoweth  saving  he 
that  receiveth  it. 

This  new  name  which  no  man  knoweth  saving  he 
that  receiveth  it  is  plain.  This  is  no  imsolved 
problem  of  interpretation.  For,  a  name  in  Scripture 
is  always  just  another  word  for  a  nature.  That  is 
to  say,  for  the  very  innermost  heart  and  soul  of 
any  person  or  any  thing. 

I  uamed  them  as  they  passed,  and  understood 
Their  nature  ;  with  such  knowledge  God  endued 
My  sudden  apprehension, 

says  Adam  to  the  angel.  And  a  new  name  is 
always  given  in  Scripture  when  a  new  nature  is 
imparted  to  any  person  or  to  any  thing.     And  so 


274  OtJR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

will  it  be  beyond  Scripture  when  that  day  comes 
to  which  every  scripture  points  and  promises,  and 
for  which  every  holy  heart  yearns  and  pants  and 
breaks.  That  day  when  He  which  hath  the  sharp 
sword  with  two  edges  shall  make  all  His  redeemed 
to  be  partakers  of  His  own  nature ;  whose  nature 
and  whose  name  is  Love.  And  just  as  no  man 
knoweth  the  misery  of  that  heart  in  which  Satan  still 
has  his  seat  but  the  miserable  owner  of  that  heart, 
so  only  God  Himself  will  know  with  them  the  new 
name  that  He  will  give  to  His  holy  ones  on  that 
day.  As  every  sin-possessed  heart  here  knows  its 
own  bitterness,  so  will  every  such  heart  alone  know 
its  own  unshared  sweetness  in  heaven,  and  no 
neighbour  saint  nor  serving  angel  will  intermeddle 
with  things  that  are  beyond  their  depth.  And 
ministers  especially.  When  they  have  overcome 
by  the  blood  of  the  Lamb ;  when  their  long  cam- 
paign of  sanctification  for  themselves  and  for  their 
people  has  been  fought  out  and  won ;  a  new  name 
will  be  given  to  every  such  minister  that  he  alone 
will  know  and  understand,  and  that,  as  Adam  said, 
by  a  sudden  apprehension.  When  we  are  under 
our  so  specially  severe  sanctification  here — 

Not  even  the  tenderest  heart,  and  next  our  own. 
Knows  half  the  reasons  why  we  smile  or  sigh, 

and  much  more  will  it  be  so  in  the  uninvaded 
inwardness  and  uniqueness  of  our  glorification. 
No  man  knows  the  hardness  and  the  black- 
ness of  a  sinful  heart  but  the  unspeakably  miser- 
able owner  of  it,  and  no  man  knows    the    names 


THE  ANGEL  OF  PERGAMOS  275 

he  calls  himself  continually  before  God,  but  God 
who  seeth  and  heareth  in  secret.  And,  as  a  con- 
sequence and  for  a  recompense,  no  man  shall  see 
the  whiteness  of  the  stone,  or  hear  the  newness  of 
the  name  written  in  that  stone,  saving  he  that  re- 
ceiveth  it.  For  your  shame  ye  shall  have  double ; 
and  for  confusion  they  shall  rejoice  in  their  por- 
tion ;  therefore  in  their  land  they  shall  possess  the 
double;  everlasting  joy  shall  be  unto  them.  He 
that  hath  an  ear,  let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit 
saith  unto  the  churches,  and  unto  the  ministers 
of  the  churches. 


276  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 


XXX 

THE  ANGEL  OF  THE  CHURCH  IN 
THYATIRA 

EAD  the  first  three  chapters  of  Hosea 
and  this  Epistle  to  the  angel  of  the 
Church  in  Thyatira  together,  and 
substitute  the  dura  lectio,  the  hard 
reading,  "  thy  wife,"  for  the  easy 
reading,  "  that  woman  "  in  the  twentieth  verse,  and 
it  will  be  seen  at  once  that  the  angel  of  the  Church 
in  Thyatira  is  just  the  prophet  Hosea  over  again. 
Very  much  the  same  scandal  and  portent  that 
Hosea  and  his  house  were  in  Israel ;  nay,  almost 
more  of  a  scandal,  has  the  house  of  the  angel  of 
the  Church  in  Thyatira  been  in  Christendom.  Our 
classical  scholars  have  a  recognised  canon  of  their 
own  when  they  are  engaged  on  their  editorial  work 
among  old  and  disputed  manuscripts ;  a  canon  of 
criticism  to  this  effect  that  the  more  difficult  to 
receive  any  offered  reading  is  the  more  likely  it  is 
to  be  the  true  reading.  Nay,  the  more  impossible 
to  receive  the  offered  reading  is  the  more  certain  it 
is  to  have  stood  in  the  original  text.  And  this  so 
paradoxical-sounding,  but  truly  scientific,  principle 
cf  our  great  scholars,  has  been  taken  up  by  some  of 


THE  ANGEL  OF  THYATIRA  277 

our  greatest  expositors  and  preachers,  and  has  been 
applied  by  them  to  the  exegetical  and  homiletical 
treatment  both  of  Hosea's  household  history  in  the 
Old  Testament,  and  of  this  so  similar  household 
history  in  the  New  Testament.  And,  indeed,  as  if 
it  were  to  forewarn  us,  and  to  prepare  us  for  some 
impossible-to-be-believed  disclosures  in  Thyatira, 
our  Lord  introduces  Himself  to  the  minister  of 
Tliyatira  and  to  us  under  a  name  that  He  has  not 
taken  to  Himself  in  the  case  of  any  of  the  other 
seven  ministers  of  the  Seven  Churches.  Only  the 
very  greatest  and  very  grandest  of  the  classical 
tragedies  ever  dared  to  introduce  and  endure  the 
descent  and  the  intervention  of  a  god.  Now 
Thyatira  at  this  crisis  in  her  history  is  a  great  and 
a  grand  tragedy  like  that.  For  our  glorified  Lord 
puts  on  His  whole  Godhead  when  He  comes  down 
to  deal  with  this  tragical  minister  in  Thyatira  and 
with  his  tragical  wife  and  children.  These  things 
saith  the  Son  of  God,  and  He  armed  with  all  the 
power  and  clothed  with  all  the  grace  of  the  God- 
head. The  Son  of  God  who  has  His  eyes  like  unto 
a  flame  of  fire  wherewith  to  search  to  the  bottom 
all  the  depths  of  Satan  that  are  in  Thyatira.  That 
is  to  say,  to  search  to  the  bottom  the  reins  and  the 
heart  of  the  minister  of  Thyatira,  and  the  reins  and 
the  hearts  of  all  his  household,  and  of  all  his  people. 
And  then  His  feet  are  like  fine  brass  wherewith  to 
walk  up  and  down  in  Thyatira,  till  He  has  given  to 
the  minister  of  Thy  atira  and  to  his  house  and  to  all 
the  rest  in  Thyatira  according  to  their  works. 
Neither   let  a  god   interfere,    unless    a    difficulty 


278  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

should  happen  worthy  of  a  god  descending  to 
unravel;  nor  let  a  fourth  person  be  forward  to 
speak,  is  tlie  advice  of  Horace  to  all  his  young 
dramatists. 

It  was  not  tiie  schools  of  the  prophets  in  Israel 
that  made  Hosea  the  great  and  original  and  evan- 
gelical prophet  that  he  was.  It  was  his  life  at  home 
that  did  it.  It  was  his  married  life  that  did  it.  It 
was  his  wife  and  her  children  that  did  it.  We  would 
never  have  heard  so  much  as  Hosea's  name  had  it 
not  been  for  his  wife  and  her  children.  At  any  rate, 
his  name  would  not  have  been  worked  down  into  our 
hearts  as  it  is  but  for  his  awful  heart-break  at  home. 
And  so  it  was  with  the  minister  of  Thyatira.  We 
might  have  heard  that  there  was  a  certain  minister 
in  that  ancient  city  in  the  days  of  the  Revelation, 
but  this  so  terrible  Epistle  would  never  have  been 
written  to  him  or  transmitted  to  us  but  for  his 
household  catastrophe — a  catastrophe  so  awful  that 
it  cannot  be  so  much  as  once  named  among  us. 
His  Divine  Master  would  have  known  all  the  good 
works  of  His  servant  in  Thyatira,  but  He  would  not 
have  been  able  to  say  that  the  last  of  those  good 
works  of  his  were  so  much  better  than  his  first 
works,  had  it  not  been  for  that  terrible  overthrow 
in  his  house  at  home.  The  minister  of  Ephesus 
had  left  his  first  love  to  God  and  to  God's  work 
because  he  was  so  happy  in  the  love  of  his  wife  and 
children.  But  his  co-presbyter  in  Thyatira  had 
never  known  what  the  love  of  God  really  was  till  all 
his  household  love  had  decayed,  and  had  died,  and 
had  been  buried,  and  had  all  turned  to  corruption 


THE  ANGEL  OF  THYATIRA  27.9 

and  pollution.  Both  the  prophet  Hosea  in  the  Old 
Testament  and  this  apostolical  minister  in  the 
New  Testament  had  come  to  see  that  when  any 
man  is  called  of  God  to  this  work  of  God,  all  he  is 
and  all  he  has,  all  his  talents,  all  his  affections,  all 
his  possessions,  all  his  enjoyments,  his  very  wife  and 
children,  must  all  be  held  by  him  under  this  great 
covenant  with  God,  that  they  are  all  to  be  possessed 
and  enjoyed  and  used  by  him,  in  the  most  absolute 
subordination  to  his  ministry.  And  all  the  true 
successors  of  those  two  typical  men  have  at  one 
time  or  other,  and  in  one  way  or  other,  to  make 
tins  same  great  discovery  and  have  to  submit  them- 
selves to  this  same  sovereign  necessity. 

Marriage  or  celibacy,  an  helpmeet  or  an  hind- 
rance, children  or  childlessness,  good  children  or 
bad,  health  or  sickness,  congregational  prosperity 
or  congregational  adversity,  and  all  else;  absolutely 
and  without  any  reserve  everything  must  come  under 
that  great  law  for  all  men,  but  a  thousand  times  more 
for  all  ministers  ;  that  great  law  which  the  greatest  of 
ministers  has  thus  enunciated: — "For  we  know  that 
all  things  work  together  for  good  to  them  that  love 
God,  to  them  who  are  the  called  according  to  His 
purpose."  Hosea  learned  at  home,  and  all  the  week, 
that  new  sensibility  to  sin,  that  incomparable 
tenderness  to  sinners,  and  that  holy  passion  as  a 
preacher,  with  all  of  which  he  carried  all  Israel 
captive  Sabbath  after  Sabbath,  and  so  did  his  anti- 
type in  Thyatira.  His  antitype,  the  minister  of 
Thyatira,  Avas  a  fairly  good  preacher  before  he  had 
a  household,  but  he  became  an  immeasurably  better 


280  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

preacher  as  his  household  life  went  on  and  went 
down  to  such  deptlis  as  it  did.  As  many  as  had 
ears  to  hear  in  Thyatira  they  could  measure  quite 
well  by  the  increasing  depth  of  his  preaching  and 
his  prayers  the  increasing  depths  of  Satan  through 
which  their  minister  was  wading  all  the  week.  We 
have  never  had  deeper  -  wading  preachers  than 
Jonathan  Edwards  and  Thomas  Boston,  and  never 
since  the  garden  of  Eden  has  there  been  two 
ministers  happier  at  home  than  they  were.  And 
it  is  very  happy  for  those  of  us  who  are  ministers 
to  see  also  that  the  two  happiest  homes  in  all  New 
England  and  in  all  old  Scotland  were  also  the 
homes  of  two  such  deep  and  holy  and  heavenly- 
minded  and  soul-winning  preachers.  But  they  were 
not  without  this  same  universal  and  indispensable 
training  in  sin  and  sorrow.  Only  they  got  their 
training  in  those  things  in  other  ways  than  in  ship- 
wrecked homes.  With  all  their  happiness  in  their 
wives  and  children,  the  author  of  the  Religious  Affec- 
tions, and  the  author  of  the  Crook  in  the  Lot  and 
the  Autobiography,  had  not  their  sorrows  to  seek. 
Some  of  the  sorrows  that  sanctified  them  and  taught 
them  to  preach  so  masterfully  all  their  readers  see 
and  know,  while  some  of  his  most  constant  and  most 
fruitful  sorrows  the  closest  students  of  Boston  have 
been  absolutely  beat  to  find  out.  But  it  is  enough 
for  us  to  be  sure  that  such  noble  sorrows  were  there 
though  the  deepest  secrets  of  the  manse  of  Ettrick 
then  were,  and  still  are,  with  the  Lord.  And  thus 
it  is  that  with  two  such  enviable  households  as  were 
the  households  of  Edwards  and  Boston,  those  two 


THE  ANGEL  OF  THYATIRA  281 

ministers  also  in  their  own  ways  are  another  two 
outstanding  illustrations  of  Luther's  great  pulpit 
principle — *  Who  are  these  so  incomparable  preachers, 
and  from  what  divinity  hall  did  they  come  up  ? 
These  are  they  who  climbed  the  Gospel  pulpit  out 
of  great  tribulation,  and  have  washed  their  robes 
and  made  them  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb.' 

Though  you  are  not  ministers  you  must  know 
quite  well  how  the  same  thing  works  out  in  your- 
selves. You  are  not  ministers,  and  therefore  it  is 
not  necessary  that  you  should  be  plunged  into  such 
depths  of  experience  as  your  ministers  are  plunged 
into  continually  if  they  are  to  be  of  any  real  use  to 
you.  But  you  are  hearers,  and  good  hearing  is 
almost  as  scarce,  and  almost  as  costly  to  the  hearer, 
as  good  preaching  is  to  the  preacher.  To  hear  a 
really  good  sermon,  as  it  ought  to  be  heard,  needs 
almost  as  much  head  and  heart,  and  almost  as  much 
blood  and  tears,  as  it  needs  to  preach  a  really  good 
sermon. 

A  jest's  prosperity  lies  in  the  ear 

Of  him  that  hears  it,  never  in  the  tongue 

Of  him  who  makes  it. 

Yes ;  but  a  sermon's  prosperity  lies  in  both  the 
tongue  of  the  preacher  and  the  ear  of  the  hearer. 
And  a  sermon's  true  prosperity  is  purchased  by 
both  preacher  and  hearer  at  more  or  less  of  the 
same  price. 

There  is  still  left  one  more  of  those  cruxes  of  in- 
terpretation that  had  almost  turned  me  away  from 
this  Epistle  to  the  minister  of  Thyatira  altogether. 


282  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

And  it  is  this :  "  He  that  overcometh,  and  keepeth 
my  works  to  the  end,  to  him  will  I  give  power  over 
the  nations.  And  he  shall  rule  them  with  a  rod  of 
iron  ;  as  the  vessels  of  a  potter  shall  they  be  broken 
to  shivers;  even  as  I  received  of  my  Father.  And 
I  will  give  him  the  morning  star."  What  a  strange 
promise  to  make  to  a  minister, — a  rod  of  iron! 
Yes,  this  is  just  one  more  of  those  scripture- 
passages  of  which  Paul  once  said  that  the  letter 
killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth  life.  For  the  letter 
here  had  almost  killed  out  all  my  hope  in  this 
passage  till  a  gleam  of  the  Spirit  came  to  light  me 
into  it  and  to  light  me  through  it.  "  He  that 
overcometh"  is  just  that  minister  who  meets  all 
the  temptations  and  trials  of  life,  at  home  and 
abroad,  with  more  and  more  charity,  and  with 
more  and  more  faith,  and  with  more  and  more 
patience,  as  long  as  there  is  a  hard  heart  in  his 
house  at  home  or  in  his  congregation  abroad.  It 
is  just  to  the  minister  who  so  overcomes  his  own 
passions  in  his  own  heart  first,  that  his  Master  will 
give  power  to  break  in  shivers  the  same  passions  in 
all  other  men"'s  hearts,  as  with  a  rod  of  iron.  By 
his  charity  and  by  his  patience,  by  these  two  rods  of 
iron,  especially,  any  minister  will  overcome  as  the 
angel  of  the  Church  in  Tiiyatira  at  last  overcame. 
All  the  iron  rods  in  the  world  would  not  have  broken 
men"'s  hard  hearts  as  that  reed  broke  them,  that  our 
Lord  took  so  meekly  into  His  hand  when  the  soldiers 
were  mocking  and  maltreating  Him.  And  if  you 
just  strike  with  all  your  might,  and  with  that  same 
rod,  all  the  hard  hearts  that  come  near  you,  you 


THE  ANGEL  OF  THYATIRA  283 

will  soon  see  hoAv  they  will  all  go  to  shivers  under 
it.  Till  for  your  reward  your  Master  will  give  to 
you  also  the  morning  star.  That  is  to  say,  when 
many  other  ministers  that  sleep  in  the  dust  of  the 
earth  shall  awake,  some  to  everlasting  life,  and  some 
to  shame  and  everlasting  contempt,  they  that  be 
wise  shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of  the  firmament ; 
and  they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the 
stars  for  ever  and  ever. 


284  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 


XXXI 

THE   ANGEL   OF  THE   CHURCH    LN 
SAUDIS 

[HEMISTOCLES,  Plutarch  tells  us, 
could  not  get  to  sleep  at  night  so 
loud  was  all  Athens  in  the  praises 
of  Miltiades.  And  the  ministers  of 
the  other  six  churches  in  Asia  were 
like  Themistocles  in  the  matter  of  their  sleep,  so 
full  were  all  their  people's  mouths  of  the  name  and 
the  renown  of  the  minister  of  Sardis.  When  he 
went  to  the  communion-seasons  at  Ephesus  and 
Smyrna  and  Pergamos  and  Thyatira,  for  years 
after  the  captivated  people  could  tell  you  his  texts 
and  at  every  mention  of  his  name  they  would  break 
out  about  his  preaching.  His  appearance,  his 
voice,  his  delivery,  his  earnestness  and  impressive- 
ness,  and  his  memorable  sayings,  all  contributed  to 
make  the  name  of  the  minister  of  Sardis  absolutely 
a  household  word  up  and  down  the  whole  presby- 
tery. Now  it  was  after  some  great  success  of  that 
pulpit  kind ;  it  was  immediately  on  the  back  of 
some  extravagant  outburst  of  his  popularity  as  a 
preacher,  that  his  Master  could  keep  silence  no 
longer  toward  the  minister  of  Sardis.     In  anger  at 


THE  ANGEL  OF  SARDIS  285 

him,  as  also  at  those  who  so  puffed  him  up ;  both 
in  anger  and  in  love  and  in  pity,  his  Master  sent 
to  His  inflated  servant  this  plain-spoken  message 
and  most  solemn  warning,  *Thou  hast  a  great 
name  among  short-sighted  men.  Thou  hast  much 
praise  before  men,  but  not  before  God.  All  men 
think  well  of  thee,  but  not  God.  All  thy  great 
sermons  are  so  much  sounding  brass  before  God. 
And  what  is  not  already  spiritually  dead  in  thee 
is  ready  to  die,  and  will  soon  be  for  ever  dead, 
unless  thou  dost  become  a  new  manner  of  minister, 
not  before  men,  but  before  God."* 

"  Of  all  men  in  the  world,"  says  James  Durham, 
"  ministers  are  most  obnoxious  to  this  tentation  of 
vanity.  And  that  because  most  of  their  appear- 
ances are  before  men,  and  that  in  the  exercise  of 
some  gift  of  the  mind  which  is  supposed  to  hold 
forth  the  inward  worth  of  a  man  more  than  any 
other  gift.  Now  when  this  meeteth  with  applause, 
that  applause  has  a  great  subtility  in  its  pleasing 
and  tickling  of  them,  and  is  so  ready  to  incline 
them  to  rest  satisfied  with  that  applause."  Durham 
is  right  in  that.  For  praise  and  popularity  is  the 
most  dangerous  of  all  drugs  to  a  minister.  Dose  a 
minister  sufficiently  with  praise,  and  you  will  soon 
drown  his  soul  in  perdition,  if  God  does  not  inter- 
pose to  save  him.  He  is  as  happy  as  a  king  all  that 
day  after  a  sufficient  draught  of  your  soul-intoxi- 
cating praise.  He  is  actually  a  sanctified  and  a  holy 
man  all  the  rest  of  that  day.  His  face  shines  on  all 
the  men  he  meets  all  that  day.  He  loves  all  the 
men  he  meets.     He  even  walks  with  God  all  that 


286  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

day.  But  you  must  give  him  his  dram  again  on  his 
awaicing  to-morrow  morning,  else  as  soon  as  he  has 
slept  off  his  debauch  he  will  be  a  worse  man  and 
more  ill  to  live  with  than  he  was  before.  To  him 
who  lives  on  praise  all  the  world  is  as  dark  as  mid- 
night and  as  cold  as  mid-winter  to  him  when  he  can- 
not get  his  praise.  The  wings  of  an  angel  sprout  in 
his  soul  as  long  as  he  gets  enough  praise,  but  he  is 
as  good  as  in  his  grave  when  he  opens  his  mouth 
wide  and  you  do  not  fill  it.  It  is  true  that  is  a 
very  weak  mind  which  values  itself  according  to  the 
opinion  and  the  applause  of  other  men.  But  then 
it  is  well  known  that  God  chooses  the  weakest  of 
men  to  make  them  His  ministers.  For  many  reasons 
He  does  that,  some  of  which  reasons  of  His  all  His 
ministers  know,  and  some  of  which  reasons  the  wisest 
of  them  have  not  yet  found  out.  "  It  were  vain," 
says  one  of  the  wisest  of  ministers,  "  to  pretend 
that  I  do  not  feel  in  me  that  mean  passion  that  can 
be  elated  by  applause,  and  mortified  by  the  con- 
trary ;  but  there  is  nothing  under  heaven  that  I 
more  sincerely  and  totally  despise,  and  nothing 
which  ever  makes  me  so  emphatically  despise  my- 
self. I  feel  it  infinitely  despicable  at  the  very 
moment  the  passion  for  praise  is  excited,  and  I 
hope  by  degrees,  as  time  goes  on,  to  be  substantially 
delivered  from  it.  I  have  a  thousand  times  been 
astonished  that  this  mean  passion  of  mine  should 
not  have  been  completely  extirpated  by  the  sincere 
and  deliberate  contempt  I  have  long  entertained  for 
human  opinion.  Opinion,  I  do  not  mean,  as  regard- 
ing myself,  but  as  regarding  any  other  person,  ur 


THE  ANGEL  OF  SARDIS  287 

any  other  book.  To  seek  the  praise  that  comes 
from  God  only,  is  the  true  nobleness  of  character ; 
and  if  a  due  solicitude  to  obtain  this  praise  were 
thoroughly  established  in  the  soul,  all  human  notice 
would  sink  into  insignificance,  and  would  vanish 
from  our  regard."  By  the  end  of  his  ministry  the 
angel  of  Sardis  will  subscribe  to  every  syllable 
of  John  Foster.  But  he  is  a  long  way  from  that 
as  yet,  and  he  will  need  to  have  some  plain 
words  told  him  about  himself,  and  about  his 
ministry,  before  he  comes  to  that. 

For  one  thing,  admitting  and  allowing  for  all  the 
good  work  His  servant  did,  I  have  found  it  far 
from  perfect,  his  Lord  says.  But  perfection  in  the 
work  of  the  ministry  at  Sardis  or  anywhere  else  is 
quite  impossible;  and  thus  it  is  that  when  we  look 
closer  into  our  Lord's  words  we  find  that  it  was  not 
so  much  absolute  perfection  that  his  Master  de- 
manded, as  ordinary  honesty,  integrity,  and  fidelity. 
What  He  really  said  was  this,  '  I  have  not  found 
thy  work  at  all  filled  up  on  its  secret  and  spiritual 
and  God -ward  side.  On  its  intellectual  and  man- 
ward  side  I  have  nothing  to  complain  about — but 
not  before  God.'  You  see  the  state  of  the  case 
yourselves.  No  man  can  long  command  pulpit 
popularity  without  hard  work.  And  it  is  not 
denied  that  this  minister  paid  for  his  popularity 
with  very  hard  work.  He  was  a  student.  He  took 
off  his  coat  to  his  sermons.  He  wrote  them  over 
and  over  again  till  he  got  them  polished  to  perfec- 
tion. And  his  crowds  of  polished  people  were  his 
reward.     But  while  doing  so   much  of  that  kind, 


288  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

and  no  man  in  all  Asia  doing  it  half  so  well,  at  the 
same  time  he  left  a  whole  world  of  other  things  not 
done.  Milton  did  all  his  work  from  his  youth  up 
under  his  great  Taskmaster's  eye.  And  so  did  the 
minister  of  Sardis.  Only  his  taskmaster  was  the 
great  crowds  that  hung  on  his  elaborated  orations. 
Take  away  the  eyes  and  the  ears  of  those  captivated 
crowds  and  this  thrilling  preacher  was  as  good  as  dead. 
"  Dead,"  indeed,  is  the  very  word  that  his  Master 
here  so  bitterly  charges  home  upon  him,  "Thou 
hast  a  name  that  thou  livest,  and  art  dead."  His 
preaching  was  all  right.  None  of  his  neighbour 
ministers,  not  the  most  accepted  of  God  and  the 
most  praised  of  God  of  them  all,  could  preach  lialf 
so  well.  His  preaching  was  perfect ;  but  his  motives 
in  it,  his  aims  and  his  ends  in  it,  the  sources  from 
which  he  drew  his  pulpit  inspiration,  his  secret 
prayers  both  before  his  sermons  were  begun,  and 
all  the  time  they  were  under  his  hand,  and  while 
they  were  being  delivered,  and  still  more  after  they 
were  delivered, — in  all  these  things, — "  thou  hast  a 
name  that  thou  livest,  and  art  dead."  '  Be  watch- 
ful, and  strengthen  these  things,'  said  his  Master  to 
him.  '  It  is  good  to  study,  only  strengthen  it 
with  much  faith  and  with  much  prayer  before  God. 
It  is  good  to  give  thyself  to  reading,  only  read  and 
write  in  the  presence  of  God.  It  is  good  to  bring 
up  thy  very  choicest  work  to  these  great  congrega- 
tions of  thine,  only  seek  their  salvation  in  every 
sentence  of  thy  great  sermons.  It  is  good  to  take 
captive  with  thy  wonderful  eloquence  the  attention 
and  the  admiration  of  these  crowds,  only  do  so  in 


THE  ANGEL  OF  SARDIS  289 

order  to  take  their  hearts  captive,  not  to  thyself  as 
heretofore,  but  to  Me  henceforth.  Strengthen,  I 
say  unto  thee,  the  things  that  remain  and  are  ready 
to  die.  And  above  all  else,  and  with  a  view  to  all 
else,  and  as  a  means  to  all  else,  strengthen  thy 
closet-prayer  before  God.  Strengthen  it  in  the 
length  of  it,  and  in  the  breadth  of  it,  and  in  the 
depth  of  it,  and  in  the  height  of  it.  Strengthen  it 
in  the  time  you  take  to  it,  in  the  intensity  you  put 
into  it,  and  in  the  way  you  work  it  up  into  your 
sermons,  both  in  their  composition,  and  in  their 
delivery,  and  in  the  way  you  continue  to  wait  and 
to  pray  after  your  sermons  ;  to  wait,  that  is,  not  for 
the  applause  of  the  hearers,  but  for  their  profit  and 
My  praise.*" 

And  his  heart-searching  Master  still  proceeds 
with  His  pastoral  counsels  to  this  minister  of  His, 
very  unwilling  to  give  him  over  to  the  decay  of  soul 
into  which  he  has  fallen.  "Remember  how  thou 
hast  received,  and  heard,  and  hold  fast,  and  repent." 
As  if  He  were  to  say  to  some  such  minister  among 
ourselves — '  Remember  thy  conversion,  and  the  spirit 
of  truth  and  love  that  was  instilled  into  thee,  and 
that  made  thee  turn  into  this  ministry  of  Mine. 
Remember  thy  college  days,  and  the  high  hopes 
and  generous  vows  made  to  Me  in  those  days. 
Remember  also  how  I  delivered  thee  when  in  thy 
deep  distresses  thou  didst  call  on  Me,  and  what 
communings  and  confidences  used  to  go  on  between 
us.  Remember  thy  ordination  day,  and  the  laying 
on  of  the  hands  of  the  presbytery,  and  the  way  thy 
heart  swelled  within  thee  as  they  pronounced  and 


290  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

enrolled  thee  a  minister  of  Mine.'  Yes,  even  to 
call  such  things  to  remembrance,  my  brethren, 
will  work  together  with  the  seven  Spirits  that  are 
in  Christ's  right  hand,  and  with  many  other  things, 
to  set  a  fallen-down  minister  on  his  feet  again,  and 
to  give  him  a  new  start  even  after  he  is  as  good  as 
dead  and  deposed  in  the  sight  of  God.  Ay,  such 
remembering  and  such  repenting  will  yet  save  this 
all  but  lost  minister  of  Sardis,  and  it  will  save  some 
ministers  among  ourselves  who  are  quite  as  far  gone 
as  he  was.  And  as  he  was  saved  through  this 
Epistle,  so  will  they  ;  and  like  him  they  will  yet 
receive  the  heavenly  reward  that  is  here  held  out 
to  us  all  by  Him  who  has  the  seven  Spirits  of  God 
and  the  seven  stars. 

The  last  thing  of  the  nature  of  a  threat  that  is 
addressed  to  the  minister  of  Sardis  is  this,  "If 
therefore  thou  shalt  not  watch,  I  will  come  on  thee 
as  a  thief,  and  thou  shalt  not  know  what  hour  I 
will  come  upon  thee."  There  is  a  certain  note 
of  terror  in  that  warning  which  is  here  addressed  to 
all  ministers,  the  most  watchful,  the  most  prayer- 
ful before  God,  and  the  best.  And  yet,  no ;  for 
perfect  love  casteth  out  all  such  terror;  perfect 
love  to  Christ,  and  to  His  work,  and  to  His  coming, 
delivers  them  who  through  fear  of  His  coming  have 
all  their  days  been  subject  to  terror.  If  I  love  you, 
you  cannot  come  too  soon  to  me.  And  the  more 
unexpected  your  coming  is  to  my  door  the  more 
welcome  will  you  be  to  me.  If  I  am  watching  and 
counting  and  keeping  the  hours  till  you  come,  you 
cannot  come  on  me  as  a  thief.     Christ  could  not 


THE  ANGEL  OF  SARDIS  291 

come  on  Teresa  as  a  thief  as  long  as  she  clapped 
her  hands  for  His  coming  every  time  her  clock 
struck.  He  cannot  come  too  soon  for  me  if  I  am 
always  saying  to  myself, — why  tarry  the  wheels  of 
His  chariot  ?  If  my  last  thought  before  I  sleep  is 
about  you  I  will  be  glad  to  see  your  face  and  hear 
your  voice  the  first  thing  in  the  morning.  When  I 
awake  I  am  still  with  Thee.  The  name  of  that 
chamber  was  Peace,  and  its  window  opened  to  the 
east.  And  every  night  after  he  received  and  read 
this  Epistle,  the  minister  of  Sardis  always  slept  in 
that  chamber  till  the  sun-rising. 

And  now  that  the  tide  is  beginning  to  turn  in 
this  Epistle,  and  in  this  minister's  heart  and  life, 
this  so  unexpected  word  of  encouragement  and 
comfort  is  spoken  to  him,  "  Thou  hast  a  few  names 
even  in  Sardis  which  have  not  defiled  their 
garments :  and  they  shall  walk  with  Me  in  white  : 
for  they  are  worthy."  It  was  with  the  minister  of 
Sardis  somewhat  as  it  was  with  Thomas  Scott  when 
he  was  first  awaking  to  his  proper  work.  Scott  in 
his  youth  had  been  ambitious  to  be  an  author,  but 
he  was  now  beginning  to  see  that  preaching  was 
second  to  nothing  on  the  face  of  God's  earth ;  and 
that  it  had  praise  of  God  as  nothing  else  had  when 
it  was  well  done.  Scott's  preaching  was  not  yet 
well  done  by  a  long  way,  but  it  was  far  better  than 
it  once  was.  And  one  of  the  best  proofs  of  its 
improvement  was  this,  that  his  parishioners  began 
to  come  to  ask  guidance  from  him  in  the  things  of 
their  souls.  But  at  that  stage  Scott  had  put  all 
he  knew  into  his  sermons  and  he  had  little  to  add 


292  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

as  pastoral  counsel  to  his  inquiring  parishioners. 
And  it  would  be  something  like  that  in  Sardis. 
Some  of  his  people  had  somehoAv  been  kept  in  life  all 
through  their  minister''s  declension  and  death.  There 
is  nothing  more  surprising  and  touching  than  to  see 
how  a  tree  will  sometimes  cling  round  a  rock  and 
will  suck  sap  and  strength  out  of  a  cairn  of  stones. 
"  How  do  you  manage  to  keep  yourself  alive, 
then  ? "  I  asked  an  old  saint  who  is  in  a  case  not 
unlike  those  few  names  in  Sardis.  "  O,"  she  said, 
"  I  have  an  odd  volume  of  Spurgeon's  Sermons,  and 
I  have  a  son  at  the  front."  I  did  not  ask  her,  but  I 
suppose  she  meant  that  the  thought  of  her  son  in 
his  constant  danger  made  her  life  of  intercessory 
prayer  in  his  behalf  perfect  before  God,  and  all 
Spurgeon"'s  readers  will  bear  her  out  about  his 
sermons.  Even  in  Sardis,  their  sons  in  constant 
peril,  and  a  volume  of  some  first-century  Spurgeon, 
kept  alive  those  few  names  all  those  years  that 
their  minister  was  dead. 

And  then  to  put  the  copestone  on  this  far- 
shining  case  of  a  minister's  recovery,  and  to  send 
him  back  to  his  work  till,  like  his  much-tried 
neighbour  in  Thyatira,  his  last  years  should  be 
far  better  than  his  first,  this  splendid  seal  was  set 
on  his  second  conversion — "to  him  that  overcometh, 
the  same  shall  be  clothed  in  white  raiment :  and  I 
will  not  blot  his  name  out  of  the  book  of  life, 
but  I  will  confess  his  name  before  my  Father  and 
before  His  angels."  It  will  be  on  that  day  to 
the  minister  of  Sardis  like  that  great  day  when 
Joshua  stood  before  the  angel  of  the  Lord  and 


THE  ANGEL  OF  SARDIS  293 

Satan  stood  at  his  right  hand  to  resist  him.  Satan 
will  resist  him  and  will  tell  to  his  face  how  he  sought 
his  own  things  in  the  early  days  of  his  ministry 
and  not  the  things  of  his  people  or  of  his  Master. 
How  he  swelled  with  vanity  in  the  day  of  his 
vanity.  How  his  own  name  was  in  every  thought 
of  his  and  nothing  else  but  his  own  name.  Only 
let  his  name  be  blazoned  abroad,  Satan  will  say, 
and  he  was  happy  and  all  about  him  were  happy. 
And  so  on,  till  Christ  will  stop  the  accuser's  mouth, 
and  will  confess  His  servant's  name.  The  Lord 
rebuke  thee,  O  Satan ;  even  the  Lord  that  hath 
chosen  Jerusalem  rebuke  thee ;  is  not  this  a  brand 
plucked  out  of  the  fire  ?  And  he  answered  and 
spake  unto  those  that  stood  before  him,  saying, 
Take  away  the  filthy  garments  from  him.  And 
unto  him  he  said,  Behold,  I  have  caused  thine 
iniquity  to  pass  from  thee,  and  I  will  clothe  thee 
with  change  of  raiment.  And  I  said.  Let  them 
set  a  fair  mitre  upon  his  head.  So  they  set  a 
fair  mitre  upon  his  head,  and  clothed  him  with 
garments.     And  the  angel  of  the  Lord  stood  by. 


394  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 


XXXII 

THE   ANGEL   OF  THE   CHURCH   IN 
PHILADELPHIA 

)F  James  Durham  had  lived  in  Kirriemuir 
in  Disruption  days  he  would  to  a  cer- 
tainty have  said  that  very  much  what 
Daniel  Cormick  was  in  the  presbytery 
of  Forfar,  that  the  angel  of  Phila- 
delphia was  among  the  seven  churches  in  Asia.  No 
minister  all  round  about  had  less  strength  of  some 
kinds  than  Daniel  Cormick :  but,  then,  like  the 
angel  of  Philadelphia,  by  universal  consent,  he  was 
by  far  the  holiest  man  of  them  all  and  by  far  the 
most  successful  minister  of  them  all.  Mr.  Cormick 
used  to  say  in  his  humility  that  had  it  not  been  for 
the  liberality  of  Lady  Fowlis  he  would  never  have 
got  to  College  at  all,  and  that  had  it  not  been  for  the 
leniency  of  some  of  his  professors  he  would  never 
have  got  the  length  of  being  a  minister.  Be  that 
as  it  may,  it  will  be  to  the  everlasting  salvation  of 
many  that  Daniel  Cormick  was  ever  sent  to  College, 
was  carried  through  his  studies,  and  was  ordained 
a  minister.  When  I  was  a  lad  in  Kirriemuir  our 
minister''s  name  was  wide  -  spread  and  dear  to 
multitudes,    not    so    much    for    his    pulpit    gifts, 


THE  ANGEL  OF  PHILADELPHIA       295 

as  for  his  personal  and  pastoral  graces.  The 
delightful  stories  of  Mr.  Cormick's  unworldli- 
ness  of  mind,  simplicity  of  heart,  and  beauty  of 
character,  crowd  in  upon  me  at  this  moment  till  I 
can  scarcely  set  them  aside.  And  it  was  such  things 
as  these  in  Daniel  Cormick  that  far  more  than  made 
up  for  the  fewness  of  the  talents  his  Sovereign 
Master  had  seen  good  to  commit  to  the  stewardship 
of  His  servant.  I  see  myself  standing  in  the  pass- 
age all  through  the  forenoon  and  afternoon  services, 
the  church  was  so  full.  I  see  Dr.  Mill  in  his  crowded 
pew,  a  much-honoured  man,  who  largely  shared  in 
his  minister's  saintliness.  And  there  sits  Mr.  Brand, 
the  banker  and  writer,  whose  walk  and  conversation, 
like  the  same  things  in  Dr.  Mill,  influenced  and 
edified  the  whole  town  and  country  round  about. 
Mr.  Brand's  copy  of  Halyburton's  Memoirs,  with  his 
name  and  my  mother's  name  on  it  in  his  own  hand- 
writing, is  always  within  reach  of  my  chair,  and  1 
am  sure  I  have  read  it  at  least  as  often  as  Dr.  Jowett 
said  to  Lady  Airlie  he  had  read  Boswell.  And  dear 
old  heavenly-minded,  if  somewhat  sad-hearted, 
Duncan  Macpherson,  the  draper.  A  saint  if  ever  I 
knew  one;  if,  perhaps,  a  little  too  much  after  the 
type  of  Mr.  Fearing  and  Mr.  Weteyes.  There  never 
was  a  kirk-session  in  Kirriemuir  or  anywhere  else 
like  Daniel  Cormick's  kirk -session,  and  the  pillars 
of  it  were  almost  all  and  almost  wholly  of  their 
minister's  own  quaiTying  and  hewing  and  polish- 
ing and  setting  up.  When  David  White  of  Airlie 
became  awakened  to  see  what  he  was,  and  what  a 
minister  ought  to  be,  he  sought  out  Daniel  Cormick 


296  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

for  his  counsellor.  As  Walter  Marshall  sought  out 
Thomas  Goodwin,  and  as  Thomas  Scott  sought  out 
John  Newton,  so  did  David  White  sit  at  Daniel 
Cormick"'s  feet.  The  two  ministers  used  to  tryst  to 
meet  in  the  woods  of  Lindertis,  where  they  strolled 
and  knelt  and  spent  hours  and  days  together,  till 
Mr.  Cormick  was  honoured  of  God  to  lead  one  of 
the  ablest  men  I  ever  knew  into  that  grace  in  which 
he  himself  stood  with  such  peace  and  such  assurance 
of  faith.  To  Mr.  Cormick''s  kind  and  winning  ways 
with  children  I  can  myself  testify.  Is  James  Laing: 
A  Lily  Gathered^  still  in  circulation  in  Dundee  ?  I 
well  remember  that  red-letter  day  to  me  when  Mr. 
Cormick  took  me  to  his  lodgings  with  him  and  gave 
me  that  little  book  to  take  home  with  me.  But  I 
am  wandering  away  from  my  proper  subject  before 
I  have  even  begun  it.  I  am  taking  up  too  much 
time  with  Daniel  Cormick,  deserving  of  it  all  as  he 
is.  The  angel  of  the  church  in  Philadelphia  could 
not  be  more  deserving.  It  was  James  Durham,  in 
the  way  he  speaks  about  "  the  little  strength"  of 
the  angel  of  Philadelphia,  that  led  me  back  to 
speak  of  Daniel  Cormick  with  all  this  love  and 
reverence  and  thankfulness. 

If  his  Sovereign  Master  allowed  to  the  minister 
of  Philadelphia  but  little  strength  of  intellect,  as 
James  Durham  in  his  profound  commentary  holds 
it  was,  and  but  little  learning ;  then,  what  he  lacked 
on  the  mere  mental  side  was  more  than  made  up  to 
him  on  the  moral  and  spiritual  side.  And  that 
wisest  by  far  of  all  the  seven  ministers  in  Asia  soon 
found  out  where  his  true  strength  lay  and  threw 


THE  ANGEL  OF  PHILADELPHIA       297 

himself  Avith  all  his  weakness  upon  his  true  strength. 
William  Law  complains  with  all  his  incomparable 
scorn  that  so  many  of  the  ministers  of  his  day  spent 
so  much  of  their  time  and  strength  in  the  pulpit  on 
such  subjects  as  the  seasons  and  the  directions  of 
the  wind  called  Euroclydon,  and  on  the  times  when 
the  Gospels  were  writ.  Now  Daniel  Cormick  had 
not  that  temptation,  for  he  possessed  none  of  its 
literature,  and  even  had  he  lived  in  our  so-learned 
day  and  possessed  all  the  learned  apparatus  of  our 
day,  he  would  not  have  given  way  to  our  tempta- 
tions in  his  pulpit.  "  You,  brethren,"  said  Andrew 
Bonar  in  Daniel  Cormick's  funeral  sermon,  "are 
witnesses  that  in  all  his  ministry  your  pastor  ceased 
not  to  preach  in  public,  and  from  house  to  house, 
repentance  towards  God,  and  faith  towards  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  His  first  sermon  after  his 
ordination  was  on  this  great  text :  '  Be  ye  re- 
conciled to  God,'  And  was  not  that  commence- 
ment truly  characteristic  of  Mr.  Cormick's  whole 
ministry  among  you.?  For,  whatever  subject  he 
handled  he  failed  not  to  arrive  at  sin  and  salvation 
before  he  left  it.  And  such  was  the  unction  of  his 
words  that  even  when  he  was  not  exhibiting  very 
intellectual  views  of  the  text,  still  his  personal  affec- 
tion in  setting  forth  the  subject  was  always  felt  to 
be  refreshing  and  quickening." — And  this  Epistle 
pays  the  same  praise  to  the  minister  of  Philadelphia 
for  the  way  he  preached  his  Master's  name,  and  his 
Master's  name  only,  in  every  sermon  of  his.  I  have 
myself,  to  my  confusion  of  face  I  confess  it,  wasted 
many  a  precious  hour  in  this  pulpit  on  Euroclydon, 


298  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

and  on  the  times  when  the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms, 
and  the  Gospels,  were  writ.  But  I  am  beginning 
now  to  number  my  days,  and  I  am,  as  you  must 
witness,  turning  my  own  attention  and  yours  far 
more  to  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  imitation  of 
the  minister  of  Philadelphia.  Now,  what  is  His 
name  ?  and  what  is  His  Father's  name  ?  if  you  have 
begun  to  learn  those  great  names  from  me  and 
with  me  ?  For  we  ministers  should  preach  the  name 
of  the  Father  and  the  name  of  the  Son  far  more 
than  we  do.  And  you,  our  people,  should  read  far 
more  than  you  do  read,  both  in  your  Bible  and  in 
other  books,  on  those  so  foundation  and  so  fruitful 
subjects.  Just  what  a  name  is,  what  its  root  is, 
and  when  and  where  this  and  that  name  of  the 
Father,  and  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  were  first 
heard  ;  these  inquiries,  as  Clement  says,  breed  great 
light  in  the  souls  both  of  preachers  and  hearers. 
To  turn  up  and  read  continually  the  very  chapter 
where  God  first  gave  His  full  and  true  name  to 
Moses,  and  then  to  trace  that  name  and  see  that 
once  it  was  given  to  Israel  there  is  little  or  nothing 
else  in  the  whole  of  the  Old  Testament  but  that 
name.  And  then  to  see  how  the  Father's  name 
gives  place  to  the  Son's  name  in  the  New  Testament, 
— all  that  breeds  great  light  in  the  soul,  as  Clement 
says.  Even  Avith  as  little  strength  as  there  was  in 
Philadelphia  and  Kirriemuir,  a  minister  will  win 
great  praise,  both  from  God  and  from  God's 
people,  if  he  keeps  close  to  God's  word  and  more 
and  more  holds  up  God's  name. 

Tentatio,  meditatio,  oratio,  were  Luther's  three 


THE  ANGEL  OF  PHILADELPHIA       299 

indispensable  qualifications  for  a  minister.  Now 
we  gather  that  the  minister  of  Philadelphia  had 
quite  a  special  training  in  the  school  of  temptation. 
We  hold  far  too  coarse  ideas  about  temptation. 
We  think  of  temptation  as  if  it  were  for  the  most 
part  to  whoredom  and  wine.  But  the  temptations 
that  make  a  minister  after  Luther's  own  heart  are 
as  far  as  the  poles  asunder  from  such  temptations 
as  these.  The  holier  and  the  more  heavenly- 
minded  a  minister  is,  the  more  he  lays  himself  open 
to  a  life  of  unspeakable  temptation.  With  every 
new  advance  in  holiness,  with  every  new  progress 
in  the  knowledge  of  God  and  of  himself,  with  every 
deeper  and  deeper  entrance  of  the  exquisitely  holy 
law  and  spirit  of  God  into  his  heart  and  conscience, 
a  minister's  temptations  multiply  upon  him,  till  he 
feels  himself  to  be  the  most  beset,  behind  and  before, 
of  all  beset  men  that  dwell  upon  the  earth.  And 
there  is  good  reason  for  that.  For  if  a  minister  is 
to  be  a  real  minister ;  if  he  is  to  know,  as  by  the 
best  and  the  latest  science,  all  the  diseases  and  all 
the  pains  in  the  souls  of  the  saints  who  are  in 
his  ward,  of  necessity  he  must  have  been  taken 
through  all  those  spiritual  experiences  himself;  of 
necessity  they  have  all  been  made  to  meet  in  him. 
O,  wretched  man  that  he  is  !  before  he  is  fit  to  feel 
for  and  to  prescribe  to  like  wretched  men  with 
himself.  And  that  is  the  reason  why  He  who  was 
Himself  made  perfect  through  temptation  has 
specially  promised  that  He  will  keep  His  ministers 
in  the  hour  and  power  and  crisis  of  their  tempta- 
tions, as  He  was  kept  in  the  hour  and  power  and 


300  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

crisis  of  his  own.  Tentatio,  meditatio,  oratio. 
Oratio  especially.  Now,  there  was  one  special 
kind  of  prayer  that  Daniel  Cormick  was  greatly 
noted  for  among  those  who  were  intimate  with 
him.  All  ministers  pray  much  and  earnestly 
before  preaching.  And  the  reason  is,  they  are  so 
afraid  that  they  may  not  do  so  well  to-day.  The 
minister  of  Sardis,  who  never  prayed  at  any  other 
time  in  all  the  week,  to  be  called  prayer,  was  always 
in  real  anxiety  and  earnestness  before  he  entered 
the  pulpit,  because  he  had  such  a  name  for  preach- 
ing to  keep  up.  And  so  it  is  still  with  all  who  are 
like  him.  They  are  so  afraid  that  they  may  forget 
or  displace  things,  or  in  other  ways  disappoint  your 
expectations,  that  they  pray  with  all  their  heart 
till  God,  according  to  His  promise,  hears  them  and 
carries  them  through  again  without  a  stumble.  The 
difference  with  Daniel  Cormick  was  that  he  would 
get,  now  Robert  M'Cheyne,  and  now  Andrew  Bonar, 
and  now  John  Baxter,  to  pray  both  with  him  and 
for  him  cifter  his  preaching.  As  I  remember  Thomas 
Shepard  also  always  did:  and  as,  I  feel  sure,  the 
angel  of  Philadelphia  also  did.  The  "  honest  weak 
ministers,"  that  they  all  three  were,  as  James 
Durham,  that  honest  but  not  weak  minister,  in  his 
incomparable  commentary  calls  them. 

"  Behold,  I  come  quickly :  hold  fast  that  thou 
hast,  that  no  man  take  thy  crown,*"  said  He  that  is 
holy.  He  that  is  true,  to  this  minister  of  His.  As 
if  He  had  said,  '  Hold  fast  by  thy  temptations,  and 
thy  meditations,  and  thy  prayers  both  before  and 
after  preaching.     And  hold  fast  also  by  My  name, 


THE  ANGEL  OF  PHILADELPHIA       301 

and  by  all  that  is  due  to  My  name  in  thine  office, 
as  well  as  in  thine  own  soul.  Let  no  man  take  thy 
crown  in  that  matter.  Be  suspicious,  be  jealous,  of 
all  men.  Let  no  man  invade  on  thy  work.  Give 
up  not  an  atom  of  thy  work  thou  canst  by  any 
possibility  perform  thyself.  Never  weary  for  one 
moment  in  thy  well-doing.  Let  not  thy  hand  for 
one  moment  become  slack.  Do  not  let  thyself  lie 
down  to  die  till  all  thy  work  is  fulfilled  and  finished. 
For  if  thou  dost  so  die,  then  thy  successor  in  Phila- 
delphia will  take  thy  crown  which  I  had  intended 
for  tiiee.'  As  John  Newton  took  Thomas  Scott's 
crown  as  long  as  Scott  neglected  his  dying  par- 
ishioners till  they  sent  for  Newton.  And  as 
ministers'  crowns  are  dropping  off  their  heads  in 
every  parish  all  round  about  for  any  ambitious 
man  to  pick  them  up  and  put  them  on.  Any  one, 
that  is,  who  will  visit  such  and  such  a  sick-bed,  and 
read  a  Psalm  there,  and  after  it  one  of  the  Pilgrims' 
crossings  of  the  Jordan.  Hold  fast,  O  all  you 
ministers  and  elders  and  nurses  and  doctors ! 
Hold  fast  as  Dr.  Mill  held  fast  at  so  many  death- 
beds in  and  around  Kirriemuir,  till  he  stole  some 
shining  gems  even  out  of  Mr.  Cormick's  crown. 
Hold  fast  lest  some  aspiring  man  run  off  altogether 
with  the  crown  your  Master  had  at  one  time 
intended  for  you.  If  it  took  a  man  like  Daniel 
Cormick  all  his  might  to  keep  his  crown  from  being 
all  stolen  from  him,  what  chance,  think  you,  have 
the  most  of  us  ministers  ? 

But    look   up !      Who    is   that    glorified    saint 
shining  as  the  brightness  of  the  firmament,  and  as 


302  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 

the  stars  for  ever  and  ever  ?  That  is  the  angel 
of  the  Church  that  once  was  in  Philadelphia.  That 
is  he,  built  in  for  ever  as  a  "  pillar"  in  the  heavenly 
temple  to  go  no  more  out.  He  was  such  a  true 
pillar  on  earth  that  the  whole  of  the  seven  Churches 
in  Asia  were  strengthened  and  upheld  by  means 
of  him.  And  now  he  is  set  in  the  very  midst  of  the 
city  of  God  which  is  new  Jerusalem.  And,  behold, 
with  the  name  of  his  God  also  written  upon  him, 
so  that  all  men  can  read  that  name  on  him,  as  they 
pass  by.  Had  the  name  of  his  God  been  strength 
of  understanding,  or  depth  and  power  of  mind,  or 
stores  of  learning,  or  an  eloquent  tongue ;  had  it 
pleased  God  to  save  His  people  by  dialectics,  then 
that  pillar  had  not  borne  as  he  now  bears  the  name 
of  his  God.  But  God's  nature  is  not  like  to  ours. 
For  we  read  in  letters  of  gold  God's  glorious  nature 
and  name,  and  it  is  this, — the  Lord;  the  Lord  God, 
merciful  and  gracious,  long-suffering,  and  abundant 
in  goodness  and  truth,  keeping  mercy  for  thousands, 
forgiving  iniquity  and  transgressions  and  sins.  And 
that  name  was  taken  up  with  such  Paul-like  deter- 
mination, and  was  so  preached  in  Philadelphia  rnd 
nothing  else  was  preached,  till  both  the  preacher 
and  the  people  knew  none  other  name.  Like 
preacher,  like  people.  That  preacher  of  Phila- 
delphia fed  his  people  on  the  finest  of  the  wheat 
till  it  became  bone  of  their  bone  and  flesh  of  their 
flesh,  and  till  God's  great  name  came  out  in  letters 
of  light  all  over  their  foreheads,  and  was  written  in 
works  of  love  all  over  their  lives.  What  a  comfort 
to   the   most   of  us  ministers !      For  the  most  of 


THE  ANGEL  OF  PHILADELPHIA       303 

us  ministers  must  always  be  far  more  like  the 
minister  of  Philadelphia  with  his  little  strength 
than  like  the  minister  of  Sardis  with  his  great  name. 
For  ye  see  your  calling,  brethren,  how  that  not 
many  wise  men  after  the  flesh,  not  many  mighty, 
not  many  noble  are  called.  But  God  hath  chosen 
the  foolish  things  of  the  world  to  confound  the 
wise ;  and  God  hath  chosen  the  weak  things  of  the 
world  to  confound  the  things  that  are  mighty. 
That,  according  as  it  is  written,  He  that  glorieth, 
let  him  glory  in  the  Lord. 


304  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 


XXXIII 

THE  ANGEL  OF  THE  CHURCH 
OF  THE  LAODICEANS 

I  HE  Archippus  who  is  so  remonstrated 
with  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians 
concerning  his  neglected  ministry, 
may  very  well  have  lived  on  to  be  the 
lukewarm  angel  of  the  Church  in 
Laodicea.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  both 
internal  and  external  evidence  that  the  angel  of  the 
Church  in  Laodicea  was  none  other  than  this  same 
inculpated  Archippus  now  grown  old  in  his  unful- 
filled ministry.  And  if  the  external  evidence  had 
only  been  half  as  strong  as  the  internal  the  identity 
of  those  two  unhappy  men  would  have  been  proved 
to  demonstration.  It  is  much  more  than  a  working 
hypothesis  then,  the  assumption  that  this  angel 
now  open  before  us  is  none  other  than  young 
Archippus  at  last  grown  grey  in  neglect  of  his 
work  and  in  ignorance  of  himself.  Archippus  was 
still  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  young  minister 
when  this  message  was  sent  to  him  from  the  aged 
Apostle,  "Say  to  Archippus,  take  heed  to  the 
ministry  which  thou  hast  received  in  the  Lord,  that 
thou  fulfil  it.""     But  instead  of  taking  that  timeous 


THE  ANGEL  OF  LAODICEA  305 

reproof  to  heart,  Archippus  had  gone  steadily 
down  in  his  declension  and  decay  till  he  had  this 
last  reproof  addressed  to  him,  and  which  has  been 
a  last  reproof  to  so  many  ministers  and  their 
people  since  his  day  and  down  to  our  own  day. 

The  English  language  has  inherited  one  of  its 
most  contemptuous  and  denunciatory  epithets  from 
this  Epistle  to  this  lukewarm  minister  and  his  luke- 
warm church.  We  call  a  man  a  Laodicean.  We 
have  no  other  single  word  that  so  graphically 
describes  a  certain  detestable  type  of  human 
character.  "  I  know  thy  works,  that  thou  art 
neither  cold  nor  hot.  I  would  thou  wert 
cold  or  hot.  So  then  because  thou  art  neither 
cold  nor  hot,  I  will  spue  thee  out  of  my 
mouth.*"  That  is  plain-spoken  enough  and  in  few 
words.  But  ever  since  this  so  scornful  Epistle  was 
written,  all  that,  and  more  than  all  that,  has  been 
collected  up  into  this  one  supremely  scornful  word, — 
thou  art  a  Laodicean  !  And  thus  it  is  that  to  all 
time  the  angel  of  the  Church  in  Laodicea  will 
stand  forth  as  the  spiritual  father  of  all  such 
spiritual  sons.  Archippus  will  stand  at  the  head 
of  a  long  apostolic  succession  that  has  descended 
from  his  ancient  diocese  into  all  the  churches : 
Episcopal,  Presbyterian,  and  Independent.  And 
this  Epistle  now  open  before  us  is  a  divinely 
fashioned  looking-glass,  as  James  the  Lord's  brother 
would  have  called  it,  in  which  all  Laodicean 
ministers  and  people  are  intended  to  see  them- 
selves. 

"  Because  thou  sayest,  I  am  rich  and  increased 


S06  OUR  LORDS  CHARACTERS 

with  goods,  and  have  need  of  nothing.''  But 
Archippus  with  all  his  stark  stupidity  could  never 
by  any  possibility  have  said  that.  He  was  not  such 
an  absolute  idiot  as  actually  to  say  that.  No,  not 
in  so  many  words.  No  minister  ever,  out  of 
Bedlam,  said  that  in  so  many  words.  No.  But  at 
the  same  time  by  the  very  Scriptures  he  read  and 
expounded  to  his  people,  as  well  as  by  the 
Scriptures  he  did  not  read  ;  by  the  very  psalms 
and  hymns  and  spiritual  songs  he  sang,  and  did  not 
sing ;  but  especially  by  his  prayers,  Archippus  all 
his  days  sealed  down  his  people  in  the  same  deadly 
ignorance  in  which  he  lay  sealed  down  himself. 
And  indeed  it  is  just  of  this  deadly  ignorance  of 
himself  that  his  Master  here  so  scornfully  speaks. 
*'Thou  knowest  not  that  thou  art  wretched,  and 
miserable,  and  poor,  and  blind,  and  naked."  On 
the  margin  of  a  copy  of  Thomas  Adams'  Private 
Thoughts  now  preserved  among  the  treasures  of 
the  British  Museum,  Coleridge  has  written  these 
pencilled  lines  :  "  For  a  great  part  of  my  life  I  did 
not  know  that  I  was  poor,  and  naked,  and  blind, 
and  miserable.  And  even  after  I  did  know  that, 
I  did  not  feel  it  aright.  But  I  thank  God  I  feel 
it  now  somewhat  as  it  ought  to  be  felt.  Stand 
aside,  my  pride,  and  let  me  see  that  ugly  sight, 
myself.  I  have  been  deceived  all  my  life  by  sayings 
of  philosophers,  by  scraps  of  poetry,  but  most  of  all 
by  the  pride  of  my  own  heart,  into  an  opinion 
of  self-power,  which  the  Scriptures  plainly  tell  me, 
and  my  repeated  failures  tell  me,  that  I  possess  not. 
It  is  the  desiffn  of  the  relijjion  of  Jesus  Christ  to 


THE  ANGEL  OF  LAODICEA  307 

change  men's  views,  to  change  their  lives,  and  to 
change  their  very  tempers.  Yes.  But  how  ?  By 
the  superior  excellence  of  its  precepts?  By  the 
weight  of  its  exhortations,  or  by  the  promise  of  its 
rewards  ?  No.  But  by  convincing  men  of  their 
wretchedness,  and  guilt,  and  blindness,  and  help- 
lessness. By  inculcating  the  necessity  of  the 
remission  of  sin,  and  the  necessity  of  supernatural 
light  and  assistance,  and  by  promising  to  the 
penitent  sinner,  and  by  actually  conveying  to  him, 
these  evangelical  blessings.*"  Well  might  Charles 
Lamb  say,  "  Reader !  lend  thy  books  to  S.  T.  C, 
for  he  will  return  them  to  thee  with  usury.  He 
will  enrich  them  with  his  annotations,  and  thus 
tripling  their  value.  I  have  had  experience,  and 
I  counsel  thee.  Shut  not  thy  heart,  nor  thy 
library,  against  S.  T.  C."" 

Among  all  the  terrible  things  here  threatened 
against  this  miserable  minister  of  Laodicea,  his 
"nakedness,"  and  "the  shame  of  his  nakedness,''  is 
surely  the  most  terrible.  There  is  nothing  that  is 
more  terrible  to  the  heart  of  man  than  shame. 
Shame  and  contempt,  as  a  parallel  passage  in  the 
Old  Testament  has  it.  Shame  and  contempt  are  far 
worse  to  face  than  death  itself.  When  we  speak 
of  shame,  in  our  shallow  and  superficial  way  we 
usually  think  of  the  shame  of  a  naked  body.  But 
there  is  no  real  shame  in  that.  When  the  Bible 
speaks  of  shame  it  is  always  of  the  infinitely  more 
terrible  shame  of  a  naked  soul.  Take  away  the 
terrible  shame  of  a  naked  soul  and  there  is  no 
shame  at  all  in  the  nakedness  of  the  body.     But 


308  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

once  strip  a  soul  naked,  and  death  is  its  only  refuge 
and  hell  its  only  hiding-place.  Take  it  home  to 
yourselves  and  see.  Suppose  your  innermost  soul 
laid  absolutely  bare  to  us  who  are  your  friends  and 
neighbours.  Suppose  your  most  secret  thoughts 
about  us  told  to  us  from  the  housetops.  Suppose 
all  your  malicious  thoughts  about  us  told,  and  all 
your  secret  hatred  of  us,  and  all  your  envy  of  this 
man  and  that  man,  naming  him,  and  for  what. 
Suppose  it,  if  you  dare  for  one  moment  to  suppose 
it,  the  whole  bottomless  pit  of  your  evil  heart  laid 
bare.  Now  all  that  is  the  threatened  case  of  this 
miserable  creature  here  called  an  angel.  Indeed 
his  case  is  far  worse  than  yours;  unless,  indeed,  like 
him  you  are  a  minister.  For  he  will  have  all  the 
shame  that  you  will  have,  and,  over  and  above  all 
that,  being  a  minister  he  will  have  the  special 
shame  and  the  special  contempt  and  the  special 
revenge  both  of  God  and  man  to  bear,  and  that, 
if  the  prophet  is  right,  to  everlasting.  It  is  the 
awful  forecast  of  all  this  to  Archippus  that  makes 
his  Master's  heart  to  relent  once  more  and  to 
address  to  him  this  last-trumpet  Epistle.  "I 
counsel  thee  to  buy  of  Me  gold  tried  in  the  fire,  that 
thou  mayest  be  rich  ;  and  white  raiment,  that  thou 
may  est  be  clothed,  and  that  the  shame  of  thy 
nakedness  do  not  appear ;  and  anoint  thine  eyes 
with  eyesalve,  that  thou  mayest  see."  It  was  this 
same  salvation  offered  to  all  such  ministers  as 
Archippus  in  the  Old  Testament,  that  made  Micah 
exclaim  at  the  end  of  his  ministry,  Who  is  a  God 
like  unto  Thee ! 


THE  ANGEL  OF  LAODICEA  309 

And  then  there  is  this  evangelical  invitation  to 
crown  all.  "Behold,  I  stand  at  the  door  and 
knock.  If  any  man  hear  My  voice,  and  open  the 
door,  I  will  come  into  him,  and  will  sup  with  him, 
and  he  with  Me.""  This,  I  feel  quite  sure,  is  a 
reminiscence  of  what  had  often  happened  to  Him 
who  here  speaks.  For  He  was  often  that  He  had 
not  where  to  lay  His  head.  He  was  often  that  He 
had  to  stand  at  the  door  and  knock.  The  parable 
of  the  friend  at  midnight  was  not  so  much  a  parable 
after  all.  He  must  often  have  been  that  poor  and 
importunate  man  Himself.  For  if  He  hungered  on 
His  way  to  the  city,  much  more  must  He  have 
hungered  and  thirsted  and  been  nigh  unto  fainting, 
on  His  way  out  of  the  city.  And  at  such  times  of 
temptation,  Satan  would  say  to  Him — '  If  thou  be 
the  Son  of  God,  command  these  stones  to  become 
bread,  and  command  the  wayside  streams  to  run 
with  wine  and  milk.'  But  He  would  say  to  Satan — 
'  Neither  have  I  gone  back  from  the  commandment 
of  His  lips  :  I  have  esteemed  the  words  of  His 
mouth  more  than  my  necessary  food.'  And  so 
saying  He  entered  a  certain  village,  and  knocked  at 
the  door.  And  the  man  from  within  answered, 
"  Trouble  me  not ;  the  door  is  now  shut,  and  my 
children  are  with  me  in  bed,  I  cannot  rise  and  let 
thee  in."  But  in  the  next  street  there  was  a  lamp 
still  burning,  and  a  voice  from  within  answered, 
"  Come  in.  Thou  Blessed  of  the  Lord,"  And  they 
supped  together  that  night.  When  you  next  think 
you  hear  His  knock,  rise  off  your  seat,  rise  off  your 
bed  even,  and  open  the  door.    Yes :  go  and  actually 


310  OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS 

open  the  door.  Think  to  yourself  that  He  is 
actually  in  the  street,  and  is  actually,  and  in  the 
body,  standing  at  your  door.  This  is  the  sacrament 
night.  And  it  will  be  a  sacramental  action  to  go 
and  actually  open  your  room  door  or  your  street 
door  late  and  alone  to-night.  Imagine  to  yourself 
that  you  see  Him  dim  in  the  darkness  of  the 
night.  Put  out  your  hand  into  the  darkness. 
Lead  Him  in.  Set  a  seat  for  Him.  Ask  Him  when 
and  where  He  broke  His  fast  this  morning.  Ask 
Him  where  He  has  been  all  day,  and  going  about 
and  doing  what  good.  Tell  Him  that  you  are 
sure  He  has  not  had  time  so  much  as  to  eat.  And 
set  the  best  in  your  house  before  Him,  and  He  will 
come  in  and  will  sup  with  you,  and  you  with  Hin). 
Believe  and  be  sure  that  He  is  in  this  city  to-night. 
Believe  that  and  it  will  make  you  to  be  on  the 
watch.  Do  not  put  off  your  coat,  do  not  wash 
your  feet,  till  you  have  opened  the  door  to  Him. 
Sit  up  for  Him.  Expect  Him.  Set  your  candle  in 
your  window.  Have  your  door  standing  already 
ajar.  And  even  if  you  should  again  and  again  be 
deceived  and  disappointed  :  even  if  again  and  again 
you  should  mistake  some  other  sound  in  the  street 
for  His  footstep,  do  not  despair  of  His  coming. 
Do  not  shut  the  door  whatever  you  do.  Far  better 
a  thousand  such  mistakes  through  overwatchfulness 
than  to  be  dead  asleep  when  at  last  He  comes. 
And  besides,  who  can  tell,  He  may  not  have  eaten 
a  morsel  or  drunk  a  drop  in  all  the  city  this  day, — 
all  these  communion-tables  notwithstanding.  And 
would  it  not  be  wonderful  if  all  the  entertainment 


THE  ANGEL  OF  LAODICEA  311 

He  is  to  get  in  this  city  this  whole  day  still  awaits 
Him  in  your  house  this  night.  And  then  there  is 
this ;  whosoever  or  whatsoever  you  are,  let  nothing 
debar  you  from  supping  with  Christ  to-night. 
You  may  not  have  been  at  our  table  to-day.  We 
lay  down  rules  and  restrictions  as  to  who  shall,  and 
who  shall  not,  sup  with  Him  in  this  house.  But, 
all  the  time,  He  is  the  Master,  and  He  can  lift  off 
all  our  restrictions,  even  when  they  are  quite  riglit 
in  us  to  lay  them  down,  and  He  can  and  He  will  sup 
when  and  where  and  with  whom  He  pleases.  And 
these  are  His  own  undoubted  words  about  this 
night  that  is  yet  before  Him  and  before  you  and 
before  us  all.  These  words  :  "  If  any  man  hear  My 
voice,  and  open  the  door," — communicants,  He 
means,  or  non-communicants;  members  or  adher- 
ents ;  young  or  old  ;  minister  or  elder ;  especially 
any  minister.  For  as  He  stood  that  night  at 
Arciiippus's  door  in  Laodicea,  so  will  He  stand  at 
all  ministers' doors  in  Edinburgh  this  night.  And, 
all  the  more,  if  they  are  all  asleep,  have  you  your 
lamp  still  burning  on  your  window-sill  for  Him. 
And  you  will  be  able  to  tell  us  to-morrow  how  your 
heart  burned  as  He  supped  with  you  and  you  with 
Him.  For  it  was  a  proverb  in  Athens  that  they 
were  always  well  in  health,  and  full  of  all  sweet 
affability  all  next  day,  who  had  supped  last  night 
with  Plato. 


COMPLETION    OF 

BIBLE  CHARACTERS 


BY 


THE  REV.  ALEXANDER  WHYTE,  D.D. 


Six  Volumes,  Post  8vo,  Art  Cloth,  Gilt  Top. 


BIBLE    CHARACTERS 

First  Series, 

Second  Series, 

Third  Series, 

Fourth  Series,  .     .    MARY  to  JAMES  THE  BROTHER 
OF  OUR  LORD. 

Fifth  Series,     .    .    STEPHEN  to  TIMOTHY. 

Sixth  Series,      .    .    OUR  LORD'S  CHARACTERS. 


ADAM  TO  ACHAN. 
GIDEON  TO  ABSALOM. 
AHITHOPHEL  to  NEHEMIAH. 


For  Cotttents  of  tbe  various  volumes  see  following  pages. 


FIRST   SERIES. 

BIBLE    CHARACTEkS:    ADAM    TO    ACHAN. 

Contents.—  Adam  —  Eve  —  Cain  —Abel  —  Enoch  — 
Jubal — Noah — Ham — Nimrod — Terah — Abraham — Lot 
— Sarah —  Isaac —  Esau  —  Rebekah  —  Jacob  —  Joseph — 
Aaron — Miriam— Moses — Moses  the  Type  of  Christ — 
Pharaoh — Balaam — J  oshua — Achan. 

'  In  every  one  of  the  sketches  we  are  brought  into  contact 
with  a  soul  on  fire  with  earnest  purpose,  astir  with  genuine 
ethical  ferment.  No  amount  of  knowledge,  no  literary  deftness, 
could  produce  these  studies  ;  they  are  primarily  the  utterances 
of  character  and  of  an  exceptionally  strong  individuality.' — 
British  Weekly. 

'Always  graceful  in  diction,  shows  capacity  for  vivid  descrip- 
tion, and  gives  a  present-day  colouring  by  introducing  illustra- 
tions from  modern  experiences.' — Scotsman. 

'  Whatever  sacred  history  has  attributed  to  these  old-time 
men  and  women  yields,  under  Dr.  Whyte's  touch,  a  spiritual 
lesson  of  deep  importance  for  some  one  to-day.  Dr.  Whyte  has 
imagination,  not  a  small  share  of  the  analytical  faculty,  and  on 
a  canvas  of  very  limited  dimensions  can  paint  a  wonderfully 
vivid  picture  of  a  whole  life.' — Christian  Age. 

'  It  is  marvellous  how  new  the  story  is,  how  living  it  becomes 
in  these  accomplished  hands.' — Expository  Times. 

'  Dr.  Whyte  is  always  readable  and  interesting.' — Record. 

'  The  literary  aroma  that  clings  to  his  narratives  is  as  refresh- 
ing as  the  breezes  wafted  from  the  mountain  pines.' — The 
Christian. 


SECOND   SERIES. 

BIBLE  CHARACTERS:  GIDEON  TO  ABSALOM. 

Contents. — Gideon — Jephthah  and  his  Daughter — 
Samson — Ruth  —  Hannah — Eli — Samuel — Saul — David, 
In  his  Virtues — David,  In  his  Vices — David,  In  his  Graces 
— David,  In  his  Services — Jonathan — Nabal — Michal, 
Saul's  Daughter — Solomon,  and  a  Greater  than  Solomon 
— The  Queen  of  Sheba — Shimei — Joab — Absalom. 

'  Delightful  and  wonderful.  ...  It  is  as  fresh  and  racy,  as 
heart-searching  and  stimulating,  as  any  that  have  come  from  Dr. 
Whyte's  pen.  We  read  sketch  after  sketch  with  unabated 
interest.  ...  A  vivid  imagination,  a  strong  faith,  intimate 
acquaintance  wi'.h  Holy  Scripture  and  the  human  heart,  a  gift 
of  edification,  a  power  to  hold  and  charm  the  reader,  meet  you 
in  Dr.  Whyte's  writings,  and  in  none  more  than  in  this  volume.' 
— Presbyterian  Wihtess. 

'The  sketches  are  clever,  vigorous,  and  characteristic' — 
Record. 

'  It  has  the  moral  throb  which  is  felt  in  all  his  writings,  the 
direct  appeal  to  personal  duty  and  experience,  and  the  strong, 
unaffected  style,  which  gives  his  pulpit  work  and  his  books  a 
character  of  their  own,' — Critical  Review. 

'  Unusual  spiritual  fervour,  keen  insight  into  human  nature, 
and  a  quaint,  unique  style  characterise  this  second  volume  of 
Bible  Characters.  .  .  .  We  have  here  independent,  individual, 
and  unconventional  studies  in  the  outstanding  Scripture 
characters  that  must  prove  extremely  inspiring  and  helpful  to 
all  thoughtful  readers.' — Trish  Presbyterian. 


THIRD   SERIES. 

BIBLE     CHARACTERS:      AHITHOPHEL     TO 
NEHEMIAH. 

Contents. — Ahithophel — Mephibosheth  —  Barzillai — 
Heman — Jeroboam — The  Disobedient  Prophet — Reho- 
boam — Josiah — Elijah — Elisha — Naaman — Job — Jonah 
— I  saiah  —  Jeremiah — Daniel  —  Nebuchadnezzar  —  Bel- 
shazzar — Esther — Ezra — Sanballat — Nehemiah. 

*  What  a  wealth  of  biographical  treasure  is  here,  and  what  an 
unfolding  by  a  master  mind  of  the  eternal  principles  that  lie  at 
the  foundation  of  all  true  living.  This  is  the  sort  of  exposition 
that  perpetuates  the  power  and  gives  undying  zest  to  the  study 
of  the  Bible.' — The  Christian. 

'  Brief,  pithy,  and  forceful.' — Primitive  Methodist. 

'  His  delineations  are  always  terse,  vivid,  and  interesting.' — 
Glasgow  Herald, 

'  The  breezy,  penetrating  treatment  which  was  so  conspicuous 
in  the  first  two  series  is  here  also.  Dr.  Whyte  does  the  Old 
Testament  no  dishonour  by  his  frank  common-sense  handling 
of  characters  which,  just  because  they  are  in  the  Old  Testament, 
many  people  fail  to  study  in  a  direct  and  masculine  way.' — 
Academy. 

'  We  have  here  fine  discrimination,  balance  of  judgment, 
charity,  and  deep  knowledge  of  the  subject,  with  attractiveness 
and  transparency  of  expression.' — Christian  Age. 


FOURTH   SERIES. 

BIBLE    CHARACTERS:  JOSEPH   AND   MARY 
TO  JAMES,  The  Lord's  Brother. 

Contents  : — Joseph  and  Mary — Simeon — Zacharias 
and  Elisabeth — John  the  Baptist — Nicodemus — Peter — 
John — Matthew — Zacchaeus — Lazarus — The  Woman  with 
the  Issue  of  Blood — Mary  Magdalene — The  Mother  of 
Zebedee's  Children — The  Widow  with  the  Two  Mites — 
Pontius  Pilate— Pilate's  Wife— Herod  that  Fox— The 
Penitent  Thief — Thomas — Cleopas  and  his  Companion 
— Matthias,  the  Successor  to  Judas  Iscariot — Ananias 
and  Sapphira — Simon  Magus — The  Ethiopian  Eunuch — 
Gamaliel — Barnabas — James,  the  Lord's  Brother. 

'  They  form  most  delightful  and  instructive  reading,  and  we 
cordially  commend  them  to  the  notice  of  all  students  of  the 
Bible. ' — Liverpool  Mercury, 

'  They  are  characterised  by  great  earnestness,  graceful  in 
diction,  and  reveal  a  wealth  of  apt — sometimes  quaint — illus- 
tration, ' — Scotsman. 

'  The  literary  style  of  the  book  is  graceful,  its  tone  is  earnest, 
and  altogether  it  is  a  good  and  readable  volume. ' — Daily  Free 
Press. 

'  There  are  power,  force,  and  beauty  in  every  chapter,  while 
the  spiritual  good  to  be  derived  from  a  perusal  of  this  charming 
book  cannot  be  calculated.  Preachers  and  teachers  in  any 
future  Bible  study  will  be  obliged  to  consult  Dr.  Whyte's  work 
as  a  text-book.' — Methodist  Weekly, 

*  Dr.  Whyte's  genius  is  fully  manifest  in  these  studies  of 
character.  They  are  fresh,  spiritual,  and  searching.' — Life  of 
Faith. 


FIFTH  SERIES. 

BIBLE  CHARACTERS :  STEPHEN  TO  TIMOTHY. 

Contents  : — Stephen— Philip,  Deacon  and  Evangelist 
— Cornelius — Eutychus — Felix — Festus — King  Agrippa 
— Luke,  the  Beloved  Physician — Onesiphorus — Alex- 
ander the  Coppersmith — Paul  as  a  Student — Paul  appre- 
hended of  Christ  Jesus — Paul  in  Arabia — Paul's  Visit  to 
Jerusalem  to  see  Peter — Paul  as  a  Preacher — Paul  as  a 
Paster — Paul  as  a  Controversiahst — Paul  as  a  Man  of 
Prayer — Paul  as  a  Believing  Man — Paul  as  the  Chief  of 
Sinners — The  Thorn  in  Paul's  Flesh — Paul  as  sold  under 
Sin — Paul's  Blamelessness  as  a  Minister — Paul  as  an 
Evangelical  Mystic — Paul's  great  Heaviness  and  con- 
tinual Sorrow  of  Heart — Paul  the  Aged — Apollos — Lois 
and  Eunice — Timothy  as  a  Child — Timothy  as  a  Young 
Minister. 

'  Much  imagination  and  knowledge  of  men  and  their  ways, 
and  considerable  artistic  power,  have  gone  to  the  making  of 
these  sketches,  but  they  are  in  no  case  written  tor  effect  or  as 
pulpit  task  work.  Earnest  purpose,  ethical  and  spiritual 
passion  breaks  through  at  every  point  and  vivifies  the  whole. 
They  ought  to  be  very  widely  read,  and  wherever  read  they 
will  make  the  Bible  more  real  and  more  profitable.' — 
Book7nan. 

'  We  stand  right  in  the  centre  of  each  story,  and  feel  all  the 
tides  of  impulse  and  passion  that  are  propelling  the  actors.  The 
deeds,  great  and  small,  that  make  up  the  history  are  traced 
back  to  their  most  secret  springs  in  the  heart.  One  sees  the 
whole  thing  to  its  innermost,  and  comes  away  with  the  lessons 
of  it  printed  indelibly  in  the  mind.' — Christian  World. 

'  Sixteen  lectures,  every  one  of  them  glowing  with  spiritual 
life  and  throbbing  with  evangelistic  urgency.' — Belfast  Witness. 

'  Far  and  away  the  most  complete  exposition  of  Bible 
Characters  yet  published.' — Aberdeen  Journal. 


SIXTH   SERIES. 

BIBLE  CHARACTERS:  OUR  LORD'S 
CHARACTERS. 

Contents  : — The  Sower  who  went  forth  to  Sow — 
The  Man  which  sowed  Good  Seed  in  his  Field,  but  his 
Enemy  came  and  sowed  Tares  among  the  Wheat — The 
Man  who  took  a  Grain  of  Mustard  Seed,  and  sowed  it 
in  his  Field — The  Man  who  cast  Seed  into  the  Ground 
and  it  grew  up  he  knew  not  how—  The  Woman  who 
took  Leaven  and  hid  it  in  Three  Measures  of  Meal — 
The  Man  who  found  Treasure  hid  in  a  Field — The 
Merchant  Man  who  sold  all  that  he  had  and  bought  the 
Pearl  of  Great  Price — The  Man  who  went  out  to  borrow 
Three  Loaves  at  Midnight — The  Importunate  Widow — 
The  Prodigal  Son — The  Much  Forgiven  Debtor  and  his 
Much  Love — The  Ten  Virgins — The  Wedding  Guest 
who  sat  down  in  the  Lowest  Room — The  Bidden  to  the 
Great  Marriage-Supper,  and  Some  of  their  Excuses — 
The  Man  who  had  not  on  a  Wedding  Garment— The 
Pharisee — The  Publican — The  Blind  Leaders  of  the 
Bind  —The  Rich  Man  and  Lazarus — The  Slothful 
Servant  who  hid  his  Lord's  Money — The  Unmerciful 
Servant — The  Unprofitable  Servant— The  Labourer 
with  the  Evil  Eye— The  Children  of  Capernaum  playing 
at  Marriages  and  Funerals  in  the  Market-place — The 
Samaritan  who  shewed  Mercy — Moses  on  the  New 
Testament  Mount — The  Angel  of  the  Church  of  Ephesus 
— The  Angel  of  the  Church  in  Smyrna — The  Angel  of 
the  Church  in  Pergamos— The  Angel  of  the  Church  in 
Thyatira — The  Angel  of  the  Church  in  Sardis — The 
Angel  of  the  Church  in  Philadelphia — The  Angel  of  the 
Church  of  the  Laodiceans. 


BS2418.W62 

Bible  characters  :  our  Lord's  characters 

Princeton  Theological  Semmary-Speer  Library 


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